


Ero̱totropía

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Aiónios [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (much much later), Ancient Greece AU, Hand Jobs, M/M, Pederasty, Slow Burn, Teasing, intercrural, vaguely tied into historic events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:44:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“If he is your father, he can fault you however it suits him,” replies Hannibal, the scarcest glimmer of amusement allowed to gather in the corners of his eyes. “And with a mouth like that you’ll be lucky if it’s not first with a fist.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Would you?" The boy asks, feigning casual, words obviously directed at Hannibal, "Fault me? And with a fist, too?"</i>
</p><p>Will is 16 when he finds himself given to an older man to be mentored and apprenticed in the art of war and horsemanship. It is traditional, and all would be well, had Will not run his mouth to this particular general in the public baths not several hours earlier...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WendigoDreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendigoDreaming/gifts).



> In short, an AU where neither of them want this, both grow to accept it, and realize they both needed it (and love it).
> 
> A brilliantly snaring [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/donate) from the utterly lovely [dweeby](http://dweeby.tumblr.com/), who requested the following: "Takes place in ancient Greece where Will is the son of a wealthy politician. He attends the public baths and ends up kadoodling with this foreign, older guy all while bitching that his dad is going to ship him off to be schooled by some famous la-dee-da General Hannibal Lecter. Sassy, smart-mouthed Will. Totally pederasty and all that fun Grecian stuff. When he arrives home his father takes him to meet the man he’s going to live with an be schooled in the art of military tactics/warfare and it’s the guy he just fucked."
> 
> We changed it up just a little, because we decided on the slow burn tactic (approved by our commissioner <3) but the gist is the same. Very sassy but utterly nervous and inexperienced Will, 500% done Hannibal. Kadoodling happens. It just takes them a while to stop snarling.

Arms outstretched, Hannibal sighs as the water pours warm, rather than bracing cold as it is on mornings when he finishes early, and it’s fresh from the river. He watches the ash and pumice streak dark down his legs, scrubbed pink beneath it, and tilts his head for the muck to be rinsed from his hair.

The gymnasium is still, so early in the day when most of the city is still at work. Hannibal’s feet against the mosaic tiles echo in the small chambers through which he passes, towards a tub from which the scent of juniper is bright and intoxicating. With a deep breath, Hannibal slips into the bath, and settles with a groan as water - steaming hot from where it was brought up from the fires - is poured slowly over him. There are no other patrons here so soon, and Hannibal watches his attendant slave depart, pitcher empty, to fetch more water.

Muscles uncoil each in turn, and he follows them in his mind, visualizing every stroke or movement that has left him so stiffly sore. The heavy wooden shield hefted against his shoulder now yields to twitches of relief across his belly. His shoulders ache with the motion of spear-thrusts, legs stretched long against the pull from his hips to strike with his sword. In practice only, today, before the place fills with civilians and athletes, but enough that the sight of the slave returning with a full pitcher earns an approving hum.

They could learn something from the Spartans, he muses, these Greeks who fill their ranks with farmers and artists. But he can't imagine that the Spartans would allow a bath after training, and so he settles content, as the water fills up around him.

The slave kneels, careful fingers to work through Hannibal’s hair, just hard enough against the scalp to draw a groan, and Hannibal leans back to enjoy the sensation.

He hears the voices before he hears the footsteps, youthful and loud, and the tension he had been working so comfortably from his body returns to his shoulders. He should have anticipated that while men worked, boys did not. Study would only take them so much of the day, and while they were not apprenticed, they were free to do as they pleased within the city.

More, Hannibal knows, than he was allowed when he had been their age.

The slave attending Hannibal soothes his hair back from his face as more water is poured against it, no longer as tangled as when he had arrived, though still longer than what the scholars wore, still barbarian in the way it was daily braided.

Beyond, Hannibal distinguishes two voices, and allows his eyes to open as he waits to see who had come to interrupt his peace.

"He should trust me to make my own choice!"

"My boy, he had. You simply took too long."

Younger and older, a boy with his personal keeper. Or a tutor perhaps, though Hannibal doubts that a tutor would allow a student to speak to him thus. When they finally come into view, only the boy is undressed, carrying himself as a king might, with straight shoulders and wide strides, hair wild and curling, the weight of it pulling the curls to rest just above his shoulders.

"I will not go,” the boy declares, turning mid-stride to walk backwards, just as graceful, to face the man keeping him company. "And he will not send me. You know how Father gets before the Council meets. He grows irrational. His words will be all but forgotten by the evening."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Hannibal watches passively as they converse, draws his knees up to fill as much of the tub with his body as he can. Meant for smaller men than he, but the slave at his side accommodates by pouring the remainder of the pitcher over Hannibal’s knees to keep them warm, the water filling around him.

He feels the curiosity of the slave’s attention on him, skimming down his body, up to his hair again where the boy settles his fingers and begins to curl it up for him. A note, hummed low, dissuades him from proceeding and it is left to fall heavy again. He will not wear in the manner of the Athenians, as he will not allow his beard to grow long and be curled as is their fashion. It is shorn as short as he can manage, now that the days of needing to curry their favor have passed, and in turn he feels the attention of the boy’s tutor drift over him and away again - that manner of looking without looking that the aristocracy practices.

Hannibal listens, and considers waking earlier still the next day in hopes of avoiding the chatter that echoes now through the well-hewn chambers.

The boy continues to talk even as they pass through to another chamber, voice authoritative and loud only in delivery, the content is childish and immature. A spoiled boy demanding rights to his choices when he himself is not capable of making them. 

When they return, the young man’s lithe body already wet with cold water, Hannibal refrains from another sound of displeasure as they take the bath next to his own, the chatter still unending. The slave attending Hannibal stands to gather more water for him, and another bustles over to serve the little lordling, who pays them little mind.

"He will not find me a suitor if I do not wish for one,” the boy concludes, and Hannibal finds himself unable to continue his silence.

“If your father is a councillor, it matters little what you wish for,” Hannibal intones, suppressing his annoyance at the childish disruption that today has substituted for the normal discourses at the baths, and training his tone to a practiced neutrality. His accent is still thick however, fitted poorly against the words.

The boy turns, words finally silenced, enough that the otherwise empty baths seem to echo with it. Both slaves return, one to Hannibal another to the boy, and it seems enough to draw his voice back from him.

"And if I am to become one as well? " he asks. "Would that not make his promises empty and his demands of me null?"

The boy motions for his slave to pour water on him, and sinks into a comfortable sprawl in his own bath.

“Becoming a councillor is not the same as already _being_ one,” Hannibal responds.

"He cannot fault me my stubbornness if I aim to become just like he."

Both brows lift in response to the youthful declaration, and the man sits up a little taller in the bath, his head visible above the edge, but no more than. “If he is your father, he can fault you however it suits him,” replies Hannibal, the scarcest glimmer of amusement allowed to gather in the corners of his eyes. “And with a mouth like that you’ll be lucky if it’s not first with a fist.”

The boy turns then, hands lax against the edges of the tub but eyes harder, narrowed, the blue beneath the lashes darker.

"You speak out of line,” he says, voice not dangerous but certainly displeased. His tutor clears his throat and the boy lifts his fingers to silence him, eyes still on Hannibal. Then he curls his hand, bends it at the wrist and reclines once more.

"Would you?" He asks, feigning casual, words obviously directed at Hannibal, "Fault me? And with a fist, too?"

Hannibal gives himself a moment to consider the questions, dark eyes lifted toward the sloped ceiling above, rising to a point on which he focuses, hand sweeping absently through the cooling water around himself.

“I know not the details of what you complain, in fairness, merely than that you do it loudly, and incessantly,” he allows, expression thoughtful. “Were I you, I would bite my tongue and consider myself lucky for what I have, compared to those who have not.” His hand lifts from the water, a passing gesture towards the slave at his side.

“And,” Hannibal adds, hardly able to resist his delight in it, “were you _my_ boy, I would have you bared over my knee as a child, to feel the flat of my hand.”

The boy's eyes widen, but before he can find the breath to recognize his own insult, Hannibal lifts a hand towards him.

“Let us try to prevent that,” he interjects, amused. “What has you upsetting the calm air of the baths with such discord?”

"Do not." The tutor's voice is not loud, but heavy with warning, and just as before the boy disregards him, though this time the man continues. "It is unbecoming to complain so, and to a man you do not know."

Blue eyes settle on him, lips still parted with unspoken interrupted words, before the boy dismisses him.

"I can return alone," he decides, tilting his head back with a quiet groan as more water is poured over it. "Tell my father I will see him then."

The audacity is astounding, and yet the older man leaves without another word, passing his eyes over Hannibal once more when he does. The boy sighs, apparently weary from hearing sense spoken to him, and sits up to regard Hannibal once more.

"My Father wishes to see me apprenticed. I disagree with his decision."

Hannibal’s brows raise a little, stretching himself a little as hot water is poured slowly down his back where he leans, reclined.

“Is that all?” he asks, without rancor, but with nearly a laugh. “It is a common practice, is it not? And what else have you to do with your day but learn new skills?” Now, there is a laugh, a single note of it on a sigh as Hannibal runs a hand across his face.

The tone settles out into a pleased hum and he asks, patiently, “In what does he wish you to be apprenticed? You excel at indignant declarations and laying about in baths already.”

Those eyes narrow again but the boy does not let his tone seep to anger. Instead, he drapes his arms over the side of the tub, rests his chin against them, tilts his head.

“He wishes me to learn of war,” he says. “Of strategies and horsemanship, sword and spear.”

Suddenly, his expression is entirely wicked, a youthful sort of power that Hannibal can feel, even if he cannot explain why he responds to it so readily.

“He wishes me apprenticed to a general. Foreign. Most likely fat and bored in his old age, caring little for the teaching of strategy, and more for the fondling of his young student.” A laugh, brisk and displeased, and the young man looks away. “A common practice, but I cannot imagine hating anyone as I would hate my lover.”

“As you _will_ hate him,” Hannibal corrects mildly. He has heard the nature of such things, seen the older men and their younger boys, several in his own company of high enough birth to merit an apprentice of their own. They are taught, certainly, trained in arts of combat and war, and in exchange a particular sort of company provided in return.

There is no appeal in it for him, the time they must afford to their beloveds that takes from their own training. It holds less appeal when he remembers his meeting, earlier in the week, in which he was strongly encouraged to take on an apprentice himself, as a reflection of his loyalty to Greece, so constantly in question. He had agreed and made no plans to follow up on it, politely assenting to whatever he must in order that his position remains unchanged.

Hannibal considers again the Spartans, who have outlawed the practice in favor of honing their skills instead, and creating the future warriors who would learn them.

It’s no wonder they’ve been creeping up the backside of the peninsula proper while the Greeks themselves have been so woefully distracted.

“And since you are so self-sufficient, then, that combat is beneath you, what would you spend your time doing?” asks Hannibal, glancing towards the boy again.

The boy hums, pushing back from the edge of the tub as though to stand.

“Combat should be beneath every man,” he declares, gesturing for his slave to fetch more water. “Violence is the language of those who do not comprehend philosophy, cannot use that wisdom to solve problems.”

The slave returns, and the boy shifts, on all fours like an animal to receive the water on his back. Hannibal can see the gentle slope of it just above the edge of the tub. The boy seems entirely aware of his charms, of his appearance and desirability to such men as he claims to abhor.

He will, perhaps ironically, make a fine apprentice to the man he will be given.

“More,” the boy sighs, turning to raise an eyebrow at the slave who immediately moves to get more water for him.

The silence draws long between them, disrupted only by the soft sound of water cascading down the boy’s skin into the bath, and when Hannibal finally removes his lingering gaze from the insolent little thing stretching and proclaiming without a care in the world, he snorts.

“You are very wise,” Hannibal responds, following the slope of the tub with a hand, and despite himself, imagining it mirrors the curve of the boy’s back, pale and bare. It isn’t an unpleasant thought, but the smug look from the one beside him dissolves any particular warmth in its consideration. “Have you considered informing the hoplites of your views?”

The question is an insult, scarcely restrained from a stronger inflection than Hannibal allows it, maintaining a mildness of tone, carefully constructed.

“I’m certain they would be most interested to hear them,” adds the man. “You should address them, who defend your country, and inform them that it is beneath them.”

He leans across the edge of the bath, long arms - well-muscled - trailing nearly to the floor as he watches young man, dark-eyed and somber.

“No,” he amends. “No, you should share your views with the Persians. Perhaps Darius himself would hear you - why, you might be the one to stop the wars, by suggesting the art of _philosophy_ as a solution to their interest in conquering Greece.”

The boy sits back on his heels, regards Hannibal with an expression of youthful, put-upon boredom.

“You speak of matters beyond and above you, metic,” he sighs, arching up into a stretch that draws his pale chest up, the muscles beneath the skin there stark and weak, still. Then he smiles, a slow, deliberate almost feline expression, and moves to stand, no care for the scrutiny, the obvious study Hannibal gives his prone form. Or perhaps relishing in it.

He keeps his movements slow as he steps from his tub, presses his hands against the edge of Hannibal’s and leans, bending his back again, tilting his hips, keeping his brilliant eyes on the man he is so blatantly disrespecting.

“Perhaps I will tell that to the fat general,” he muses. “Bring him words of wisdom as his eyes remain distracted against me. Perhaps I will stop wars. And then you will know to thank me, personally, when I do.”

A grin, bright, confident, and the boy pushes to stand, turning on the spot before making his way back to where his clothes had been folded, feet echoing wet footsteps against the mosaic and the empty chambers.

Hannibal’s eyes narrow, a faint movement of muscle just beneath them, following the long skinny legs as they carry the boy away from him.

“I imagine your fat general will find better uses for your mouth than hearing your hard-won thoughts on military strategy,” he answers after him. With an easy movement he stands and slips from his own bath in turn, grasping his hair to wring it back into the water, his back towards the boy.

With a sigh, a moment of mourning for the peace that was utterly lost to him when this spoiled child arrived, Hannibal stretches his arms wide. His attendant is quick, with skilled hands, and he pours from a smaller pitcher a slick of olive oil onto his fingers, and begins to work them into Hannibal’s skin. His shoulders first, down into his back, across one arm to his hands, and then the other, each in turn.

“What will you tell your father, then, peacemaker?” Hannibal muses over his shoulder.

“That I am wise beyond my years,” echoes the voice from wherever the boy has chosen to situate himself. The cavernous space makes it impossible to understand where he is. “That I need not to learn combat where I can learn the history of it to prevent it.”

Another put upon sigh, and Hannibal can’t help but smile as he lowers his arms, closes his eyes as the slave works the muscles in his thighs, now, careful, skilled fingers, never lingering.

“I have talked him into sense with this before,” the boy adds, tone coy. “He has tried many times to sell me into education.”

Hannibal works his hair back from his face, waving away his attendant and quietly requesting his clothing.

“You are loud beyond your years,” Hannibal corrects with a snort. “Insolent beyond them, as well. Beyond mine, for that matter.”

He separates the long strands, made smooth now, less tangled, and works them into a slow braid, stubborn refusal to bind it up regardless of his status in the city. The tie is brought to him and secured to keep it from his face, and he allows himself to be dressed, linen chiton draping smooth across his skin.

“But who am I to say,” he answers to himself. “Perhaps I have met the boy to stop all wars, with his vague notions of ‘philosophy’ and refusal to actually learn any of it. So well-born and talented that knowledge simply bursts from his skull as if it were Athena.”

“Envy is a poison,” comes the lofty reply, and then footsteps again, more hollow now, from sandals rather than bare feet. “You would not understand the concepts I encompass, the words I take wisdom from. And it would be tedious to get you to, considering we shall never speak again.”

Hannibal’s amusement blooms enough to curve his lips towards a smile, adjusting the himation across his shoulder, rather than his arm.

“The first words with any weight I’ve heard you say yet,” the man responds, more entertained than rancorous at this point, and suddenly profoundly grateful that his own arrangements for such an apprenticeship have been intentionally, indefinitely delayed. “We shall not, and the day on which I hear theories of warfare dictated to me by a child is the day I snap my spear and drive my sword into the soil.”

He extends a hand to take the chlamys, soft wool finely woven with the pattern of laurels, and brings it across his own body, to fasten against his other shoulder. The mark of his service, a rich shade of crimson, stark against the pristine white folds of his other garments.

“I wish you well, peacemaker, with your father and your fat general. And I thank you for assuring me that while I dread the concept of having my own apprentice, I will be grateful so long as they are any degree less raucous than yourself.”

A simple laugh answers him, no words needed now, and the boy passes by with a grin and an expression that on any other would read as shy. But this creature controls it like a well-honed blade. Hannibal can feel the gaze pass over his back, then his front as the boy looks, brings his lip between his teeth before sketching out a bow.

Then, without another word, he turns to go, hips shifting in a graceful motion only boys that age and girls much older possess.

He is a temptation, a terror.

And thankfully someone else’s problem.

\---

The evenings are still warm here, and Will finds himself gazing at the stars in the garden after supper, after the house had filled with angry words and raised voices as he had declared, once more, that he would not go into another’s service, that he had no use for military tactics and even less for a mentor.

Now the rooms echo with quiet, with his father’s promise that were he to disobey him this evening, when a guest was to arrive, he would find himself not only apprenticed but disowned.

So Will sits instead, alone and quiet, working the tension from his muscles with long deep breaths and the soft smell of flowers from deeper in the garden.

Could his father not see that he would do badly when apprenticed? That Will, his boy who so understood and spoke as he did, was not a fighter? Was barely a man of the people, preferring the company of slinking cats and the dogs the household owned, his scrolls and tablets?

He knows it doesn’t matter. He knows that the man he had spoken to today was right, that his father’s word would be law to Will regardless of what he thought or desired.

Will watches one of the slaves pass by, urgency in her step, and grimaces at knowing the meaning of her hurry without having heard a word of it. He remains seated, a last attempt at stubbornness, before his father comes along in the opposite direction and regards the boy at length.

“You could not delay it forever,” he tells his son, not unkindly, now that tempers have settled. “There were many suitors, of all varieties, of which you might have had your choosing. None enough for you, nor would there be did you not force my hand to it. It will not do for a councillor’s son to live like a woman, laying about and sighing all day.”

A moment more passes before Will drags himself to his feet. An arm is pressed around his shoulder, a brief affection, before his father straightens the folds of his clothing and ushers him along.

Laurels, gold, woven into a crimson background, folded elegantly over stark white linen. A braid of hair, folded neatly, hanging long against it.

“Hannibal,” laughs Will’s father, extending his arms as the man turns toward him. “General, I should say, for formality’s sake. Welcome. I cannot tell you what good it does my heart to have you here.”

Will doesn’t look up until he absolutely must, and even then finds no words to describe his displeasure.

The man looks somehow taller in his uniform, wider shoulders and sharper jaw, eyes just as dark and beard as strangely short. And all Will can hear are his parting words, how he wishes him well, how he hopes that his own apprentice is not as raucous. Will feels his eyes narrow, an anger and fear and twisted pleasure deep inside his gut that makes him raise his chin and tilt his head.

“General,” Will responds, tone clipped, word almost hissed, enough to turn his father’s head, to have the man’s eyes darken in his displeasure at the disrespect.

“You will show respect, Will, to the man who will teach and guide you.”

Hannibal’s smile widens briefly, although it does not reach his eyes, and he inclines his head in what suffices as a bow.

“Will,” Hannibal repeats. “A pleasure.” There is nothing in his tone of anything but an essential politeness, glancing towards the boy’s father with a modicum of surprise. “Your father has been my patron in this city for many years. Admittedly, I did not know his intended for me was his son.”

The darkness lightens into another laugh, perhaps a little forced, as Will’s father claps Hannibal on the shoulder. “I paid for Hannibal’s first panoply, the whole of it. You ought to have seen him then, fresh out of the forests. I’d never seen anyone fight like that and,” he adds, with a pointed glance towards Will, “any boy should consider himself lucky to be taught by him.”

"Then perhaps he should take any boy of his choosing," Will responds, tilting a brow at the general - Hannibal - before glancing at his father. "It is the most elaborate trick you have tried to get me to behave, Father, but I have read your scrolls, I know our laws, and this man cannot do more than exist here without incident or consequence."

Will’s father glowers and it takes a lot for Will not to cower. And he is scared. He is terrified that for once his father does not speak in jest, in mere threat.

"Father, I cannot be apprenticed to a metic!" Will says, voice lilting into a higher, more worried note. "You cannot be serious in letting him take me, he is not Greek!"

Though his jaw works, the only hint of the profound annoyance resonating through Hannibal, his tone is steady, utterly impassive as the boy’s shrill exclamations ring through the room.

“A complaint best taken up with Council that has granted my citizenship here,” he responds, tongue parting his lips into a mirthless smile, “sponsored by my patron.”

“But -”

“Your father’s sponsorship,” Hannibal clarifies further, glancing towards the boy’s father who allows him continuance. “On faith in my capabilities to lead, and my proficiency in doing so. I have been granted stay not only as a _metic_ but the rights of citizenship accordingly. I own a home. Exemption from particular taxes. Right to attend the assembly.”

“Has he forgotten anything, Will? That you’ve learned from your studies of law,” his father asks, attempting to lighten the mood, however incrementally, but with no less baleful a look towards his son. He leans towards Hannibal, an audible murmur, “Too clever for his own good.”

Hannibal hums, without yet turning his eyes from Will.

Will looks desperate for a moment longer before swallowing thickly and directing his eyes down, hands clasped behind himself to draw his shoulders straighter.

"I apologize, general. I have spoken with ignorance and cruelty."

Will’s father offers his son a gentle look before returning his eyes to Hannibal who merely nods, a silent acceptance of the boy’s apology, while here, in public. He is sure to bring up the boy’s thoughtless words later, accompany it with the sharp strike of the back of his hand.

"He will learn," Will’s father continues, a statement, not a reassurance. "I would trust no other with my son, Hannibal. He is a bright boy in need of guidance and company. He will make a fine apprentice, his mind is sharp, and his mouth he will learn to control."

Will swallows again, angry, humiliated, and acutely aware of the other’s eyes on him.

“There is a great deal to be learned,” Hannibal finally agrees, genial enough. “Much more than only use of spear and hoplon - there is military history, not only of Greece but elsewhere,” he notes, without specificity. “Strategy and method, formations and when they should be broken. Hunting for sport, for survival. Horsemanship - their care and keeping.”

Inordinately pleased, Will’s father looks between the two - Hannibal who watches him, the boy who watches the floor - and speaks towards Will, encouraging. “He has always enjoyed animals, haven’t you, Will?”

“They have more sense than people," Will responds, and is surprised when it earns pleased laughs from both men. He wishes this were over, that he could return to his chambers, his scrolls and his silence.

"By the time you return the pups will have been born and grown, you will have true hunting dogs to use, Will," his father says, a long look towards his son before he straightens his shoulders and turns to his friend. "Shall I provide him a horse to ride or will he share yours?"

Will’s skin feels cold, his blood colder still, and he finally looks up, wide eyes and parted lips.

"Father, you will not send me today?"

“If he has one of his own, I have space in the stable for it,” Hannibal responds. “But there is no need to give one of yours if not, and I would gladly find one of my own that suits him. There is something to be said for growing older with one’s mount, a synchronicity of minds and bodies, as both learn together.”

“Father -”

He nods, pleased by the promise of all Hannibal has to teach the boy. “Very well, then. A fair gift to begin your relationship.”

“Father, please -”

Hannibal braces an arm against himself, a more rigid bow than before, a deference that is dismissed by a friendly wave from Will’s father. “I will keep you informed of his progress, as is custom, I am lead to understand,” suggests Hannibal as he smoothes a hand down his tunic.

“Custom!” exclaims the man. “In all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten. It’s been so many years. He’ll need to accept, of course, it isn’t slavery,” he chuckles, drawing himself up a little taller as he turns to regard his son. “Will -”

"I will not," Will responds, hands fisted at his sides and expression caught between helpless and anguished. "If I do not, you cannot send me."

It is all fear, now, no pride to straighten Will’s shoulders, no delight in his words and games. He watches his father, the flicker of disappointment that hovers just behind his eyes as he looks at his son. And that, in the end, is what moves Will, the guilt of shaming his father, his name, with his youthful headstrong beliefs and demands.

His father has been good to him, rarely unfair.

And this, Will knows, he cannot escape.

He swallows, nods, turns back to Hannibal and keeps his head down as he takes a step towards the man, much closer now, an invitation to touch, to see.

It is Hannibal’s reluctance, then, that stills the man a moment more. A glance exchanged with the boy’s father, an encouraging nod, and Hannibal steps nearer, once, twice, until they are nearly toe to toe. It is a strange performance for the man, something taught that does not yet truly resonate in him, as he bends at the knees. He must, the boy is so much shorter than himself, and with only the barest touch his fingers find the inside of Will’s thighs. A roughness to them, calloused from work and war, against the soft skin and heat.

Will trembles beneath the touch, unknown to any but himself and Hannibal, and a look of sympathy gentles the general’s eyes. He does not grasp the boy, but merely affects it, palm resting against the juncture of his thigh rather than fully between his legs.

A light touch, a slide of his other hand, the side of his fingers tucked just beneath the boy’s chin, lifts it and brings their eyes to meet.

Will allows his head to be lifted but does not meet Hannibal’s eyes, keeps his own unfocused in the middle distance, somewhere just over his shoulder. He is brought back by a gentle squeeze against his skin, and for a brief moment meets the general's eyes.

He knows he should be demure, accept the touches of his mentor as one would worship. He knows that to this man he will become an idol to covet, something beautiful to keep and show and touch. And that is what Will fears the most.

He finds no cruelty in the man’s eyes, however, and allows himself to release a long, slow breath before parting his lips for him.

Hannibal’s brows draw at the movement, a subtle exchange of expression visible only to the two, held together for only moments that stretch far longer than the actual time they stand touching. Dark eyes follow the youthful flush across the boy’s cheeks, to the fullness of his mouth, further still to the way his throat works, once, a nervous swallow.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and Will knows with the softness of the man’s voice that in it, he is entirely honest, and perhaps more surprised by this than anyone.

The kiss is so chaste as to hardly be felt, barely more than a brush of their mouths together before Hannibal’s hands slide free of the boy, and he steps aside again.

Will’s father claps once, elated, and declares, “Wonderful! He will do well by you, Hannibal, and by me in doing so. Will,” he continues, turning towards his son with a quick hand to push the boy’s unruly hair back out of his face. “Go and gather your things, if you have any necessities to bring. Hannibal will provide most everything for you, though, so pack light. And I am only just across the city from you, should there be any need for anything more than that.”

Without a word, Will goes, finding himself facing his dark chambers entirely lost as to what to take, when this entire space is his life, and holds within it all he cares for.

He can hear soft conversation behind him in the main room, where Hannibal and his father speak of many things Will cares not for. Not right then. He gathers his scrolls, carefully wrapped in a sheet to hold them together, a cloak against the cold. He can think of nothing else to take, without taking it all, and returns to the two men waiting for him.

He is no longer so hunched when he faces them both again, and meets Hannibal’s eyes properly before asking for permission to take his scrolls, which he is granted. When Will turns to his father, he cannot meet his eyes, but their embrace is gentle, affectionate. 

"Learn well from him."

Will nods.

Pleasantries are exchanged between the older men, polite on Hannibal’s part, enthusiastic on Will’s father’s. Agreements to keep him informed of his son’s progress, to treat him well. Hannibal declines dinner, with no hard feelings considering the stressors of the night, and the unspoken understanding that they should go while Will is still compliant in doing so.

It is only when Hannibal’s horse is brought to him that he speaks again to the sullen boy at his side.

“In Crete, you’d have simply been kidnapped,” he intones, pressing a hand to his horse’s neck. A smaller one than most that Will has seen, shorter and more stout, a dark brown only a shade lighter than black, white stockings up to its knees. Hannibal accepts grudgingly the blanket offered to him by the stablehand, and settles it in place for Will.

A pause, and a dire amusement edging into the man’s voice as he asks, “Do you prefer the front or the rear, peacemaker?”

Will glares, a brief return to his mischievous performance of the early morning, and he licks his lips.

"Wherever the fat general will not displace me,” he returns, displeased, but finally gesturing to the front with a quick flick of his hand. He is not an able rider, he worries his humiliation will only grow if he falls off the horse as Hannibal takes him away.

As good as kidnapping, despite the customs and Will’s grudging acceptance.

He allows himself to be lifted onto the horse, clutches his scrolls close as Hannibal mounts behind him and presses as close as necessary to keep the horse balanced.

Will tenses, keeps his head down, but finds the man has no interest in drawing his hands between Will’s legs again, and simply takes up the reins to coax the horse forward.

In night-dark Athens, the two draw few looks. Far more attention is paid to Hannibal’s horse, the man himself, an outsider even to the city to which he has been named a son, than to Will or their manner of carriage. But there are scant enough people out now, most awake at this hour reconciled to the taverns, and less and less as the city grows thinner around them, and the sky opens above.

It is a reasonable journey, but Hannibal is a steady rider, careful to right Will when he begins to doze languid and loose upon the sure-footed horse moving smooth beneath them. Dawn is spreading golden fingers across the sky when they arrive, and no more words are spoken between them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have let you be, since you arrived, in hopes that you might come to me and do more than sit in sullen silence and eat my food. If that is all you intend to do here, then you leave me little recourse but to make the most of this arrangement in whatever way suits me.”
> 
> Hannibal inclines his head, but his eyes never leave Will, watching as the boy's cheeks darken at the threat.
> 
> “Come. Now.”

For two days, Will is allowed reprieve to explore the house on his own, the grounds. No responsibility is placed upon him beyond joining Hannibal for their evening and morning meals.

His chambers are large, comfortable, and Will has found himself relaxing into the space, setting his scrolls away, resting against the expansive window sills. He can hear Hannibal move within the house, leave for the stables - large, filled with many horses, all stocky and dark, and four foals, restless and playful - and return.

Will wonders at his fascination with the large creatures.

On the third day, Will is met in the hallway between his room and Hannibal's, a large hand stopping him from passing until Will’s shoulders rise and his eyes narrow.

"Please let me pass."

"Not until I have properly greeted you."

Will swallows.

"You don't... it's not necessary once the bargain is struck."

"It is at my discretion to determine what is necessary within this house. Come to me."

Will hesitates, glances behind himself, before directing his eyes to the ground and staying where he is. The man regards him expectantly, and his patience thins as his tone lowers.

“Shall I make you?”

A simple question, with many possible outcomes, and when there is no response beyond the boy’s glare growing narrower at the floor, it is Hannibal who speaks again, lip curling in a snarl of displeasure.

“I have let you be, since you arrived, in hopes that you might come to me and do more than sit in sullen silence and eat my food. If that is all you intend to do here, then you leave me little recourse but to make the most of this arrangement in whatever way suits me.”

He inclines his head, but his eyes never leave Will, watching as the boy's cheeks darken at the threat.

“Come. Now.”

A moment more, with nothing but slow breaths and tense shoulders, before Will takes the steps necessary to stand before his master. The man is much taller than he, much larger, yet Will has never seen any violence from him, directed at himself or the slaves or horses.

He closes his eyes as Hannibal hooks warm fingers beneath Will’s chin and lifts it. 

"Open your eyes, I wish to look at you."

"My eyes do not have to be open for you to look," Will responds, and the gentle fingers turn, pressing against Will’s cheeks until he opens his eyes, lips pressed together, and looks up.

"I will greet you every morning, this way," Hannibal tells him, as Will flicks his blue eyes between Hannibal's, "and you will greet me. Until you learn, I will use any means necessary and you may not enjoy them. Do you understand?"

Will swallows, knows the choice is genuine, his, finds that beyond lowering his eyes in supplication he can do little more.

“I did not wish for this any more than you - less, perhaps, for my own life having already been established,” Hannibal states. “But we are here, for the foreseeable future, and suffer in loyalty to the same man.”

He steps a touch closer, looming over Will, who stands only tall enough that Hannibal could rest his chin atop the boy’s head and have to lean down slightly to do so. 

“I have agreed to teach you, and I will do so, whether you are willing or not. I should caution that it will be a far easier and less painful experience for you if you are agreeable to it.”

There is a curiosity to the man, despite the unyielding tenor of his words. An acquiescence beyond the arrangement in which they find themselves, but to the greater entity of Athens. Customs to which the man would rather not adhere, customs expected somehow more of him than of the city’s native-born sons. A careful unfolding of fingers brush the front of the boy’s thigh over the thin wool of his chiton, but explore no further.

“Is it so terrible?” Hannibal wonders, wrinkles caught in cruel amusement in the corners of his eyes.

Will fights a mirroring expression but his eyes narrow further.

"I suppose you could truly be a fat, old general," he concedes, allowing the gentle stroke of warm fingers over his lips before another barely-there kiss is pressed to them and Will is let free.

"Today we will be in the stables," Hannibal decides, stepping aside to let Will pass as he had wanted to earlier. "We will choose you a mount, and I will teach you to care for him."

Will looks skeptical, wonders what the day will hold beyond something so simple, so generally enjoyable. But he says nothing as he goes, passing through the thin curtains floating on the warm breeze to make his way to the stables.

If he is to have a mount, he will not fight it. It is customary for the _erastes_ to gift an animal to his boy.

He can feel the tickling, lingering sensation of Hannibal’s fingers against his thigh as he walks.

Hannibal follows the boy, scrutinizes the length of his stride, lazy and unhurried, until the boy stops to stretch just outside the doorway, and Hannibal’s eyes narrow.

A swat snaps across the back of the boy’s leg, and Hannibal meets his startled expression with brows raised meaningfully.

“If you do not hurry, boy, there are plenty of implements in the stable to ensure that you do. _Go_ ,” he insists, teeth gritted until Will plucks up his step a little faster.

In sandaled feet, the boy goes, kicking up dust along the path. The wind coming off the water carries away the smothering blanket of heat that lays across the land on days when the air is still, and it is pleasant out. Hannibal turns his attention towards the sea, a short ride away, and when he has spent his time to let his vision settle to accept the brightness of the sun blinking brilliant off the waves - and sees no dark shapes upon the horizon - he continues on.

The house was a gift, in truth, soldiers’ wages at that rank enough to pay for a comfortable, small city-lodging, but little more. His elevation up the ranks, hard-won and with scars to show for it from Marathon, brought with it renown despite his origins, and the house, a gift from the city to celebrate the granting of his right to own it in the first place.

The Greeks, Hannibal had learned, were often a people of paradox.

“There are a dozen, not counting the four little ones, with three breeding pairs,” Hannibal tells the boy. “We will let them into the pasture, and meet them on their ground.”

Will nods, listening but uncaring for the moment. He has ridden before, but never well. He spent more time with the dogs in his father's home. Horses are as foreign to him as Hannibal is to this land. But he takes heed of how to approach them, watching Hannibal open the stables one by one, press his forehead to the horse, or touch it gently against the neck before letting it free to roam.

The foals he does not touch, allows them their freedom with only a smile. Perhaps he wishes for them to remain impartial when choosing their new master, perhaps they simply are too young.

"I've not seen horses like that before," Will admits, arms crossed against his middle before he turns to Hannibal. "They are so small. Stocky creatures made for working, not riding, I would have thought. But you ride these."

This draws a glance from the man, brows lifted in surprise, as much at the amount of words from the boy as their contents. He watches him a moment more, and then turns back towards the horses gathering and dispersing to nose against each other with familiarity, the little ones kicking up their hooves.

“Correct,” Hannibal answers, feeling his breath come a little easier now, the open air and the momentary accord struck between he and the boy, conversing almost amicably. “Greek horses come from the south. Deserts and warmth. They carry their weight high, lofty animals, thin and long-legged to let the wind cool them from the heat. Elegant but spirited animals, I would not trust them beneath me in battle, though many do.”

As if on cue, one of the dark little horses wanders near to him, and he extends a hand. From the tall white socks, Will knows it is Hannibal’s own, the same on which he arrived at this place. The animal snuffles with interest at Hannibal’s palm, before nudging the man instead, and grinding its head against his chest, up and down, snorting. Hannibal yields to being used as a fencepost, strong hands scratching behind the horse’s ears, down its neck, against its cheeks.

“Further north, the wind is not a relief, it is a danger. The lower to the ground you are, the less chance you have of being knocked over from it, or freezing from exposure. Our horses are,” he pauses, and reconsiders his words, spoken with energy and ardor.

He quiets, and begins again.

“Their horses are thick-furred and thicker-legged, for riding through drifts and against the driving snow. They are not as fast as those from the south, but can cover great distances with little effort.”

It is no wonder the man smells like the animals near-constantly, all but in an embrace with the horse, their heads pressed together for a moment before Hannibal murmurs low to her in a rough, rolling tongue, and sends the creature on her way.

“The white marks on her feet are good luck. Make her sturdy,” he comments, distantly, before nodding to the herd, and dismissing the boy all at once. “Go and meet them. See how they take to you.”

Will considers a long moment, thoughtful, not disobedient, before making his way into the field where the horses meander together, picking at the warm grass. Most don't notice him, too used to Hannibal, used to people, to be bothered by Will among them.

He approaches Hannibal's horse first, careful to stand where the horse can see him before holding out his hand to come closer. The mare lifts her head, curious, snorts gently and drops her nose to the grass. Will walks closer still, close enough to feel the horse press her nose to his sandals. Will strokes over the rough hair of her mane, bends over to stroke behind her ears as the animal calmly accepts the touches.

Will laughs, turns back to Hannibal to find the man’s eyes on him explicitly, a slow study of his form, of his standing. It brings heat to Will’s cheeks before he turns away again, seeking another animal to approach.

Most of the older creatures spare him less than a look. One raises his head for Will to touch his nose, feel the creature nuzzle and snort with silken skin until his hand is damp and his smile so wide it hurts his cheeks. The foals run from Will when he gets close, whinnying and kicking, little, still, stupid creatures with thin weak legs.

Will wonders if this is how Hannibal sees him.

He does not chase the colts, but he makes his way to the patch of long grass he sees them coveting, rips some free and kneels so the grass comes up to his ribs. And there he waits, no sudden movements, no impatient fidgeting that Hannibal so often witnesses in the boy at the evening table, when he walks past him in the corridor.

Will waits, long enough for one of the unsteady little creatures to bound closer, then carefully pick its way to where Will sits, neck outstretched and lips drawn back, ears down then forward, rotating in confusion and curiosity. Carefully, cautiously, the foal comes closer, enough to take the grass near Will, nuzzle closer until she takes what Will holds in his hand, allows him to touch her nose, her tiny mane and furry neck.

“Where she can see you,” the man intones, his voice steady and soft. “Along her nose, her neck, always in her eyesight.”

Hannibal’s movement is practiced and slow, a low crouch that seems inelegant for the garb he wears, meant to be displayed long and draping. He lets it slide between his legs, hitched up against his thighs, and sits on his heels with a hand against the ground. At the height now of the two little animals who share the tall grass together, boy and horse, and Hannibal feels a snaring in his chest that surprises him.

“She’ll be fast,” he adds. “She bears marks on her haunches. And clever, too, this one.” Hannibal motions with a hand down his own face, in mirror to where the little filly wears a broad white stripe. "Daughter to my own, and her father was my hunting horse when she was pregnant.”

He speaks in tones as if the animals were family, sisters and brothers rather than beasts of burden, and so watches Will’s behavior in this introduction. The wideness of the boy’s eyes, the trembling of the little foal’s legs, stubby tail twitching in excitement over her own bravery, as Will’s grin widens at his.

And just as quickly, she is distracted again, no longer alarmed by the presence of the boy in her clover, broad teeth cropping up the plants that none of the others have dared ventured near with Will square in the center of them. She pushes against his leg to get beneath him, and Hannibal laughs, once, clapping his hands on his thighs as he stands again.

“Always convinced that whatever is best, is being hidden from them,” he muses, rubbing a hand through his closely-shorn beard. “Surely the grass on which you sit must grow sweetest.”

The boy’s blush at the implication, spun as unintentional, is deeply gratifying. A high pull of sound from Hannibal’s horse tugs the reluctant little creature away, a jittery back and forth on gangly legs, before she bounds across the field again.

“It will take time for her to be grown enough to ride,” notes Hannibal, feet sinking into dew-damp grass up to his shins as he approaches the boy and offers a hand. “I will teach you to ride on one of the others, but you will work with her, both of you with each other. Have you cared for them before?”

Will regards Hannibal’s hand at length, and looks away again unmoved. “That’s for slaves to do. That’s why you _have_ them.”

His hand left empty, Hannibal stretches his fingers, and his lips twist together into a thoughtful frown. Reaching, they wind through the boy’s long, girlish curls instead, and squeeze just enough to hear the boy gasp.

“No,” Hannibal reminds him. “That is why I have _you_.”

Will’s eyes are wide, as bright with confusion as his cheeks are dark from the unfamiliar touch. It is not unpleasant, but incredibly unusual. For a moment, he just sits there before he moves to slip free of Hannibal’s fingers, that, to Will’s surprise, do not tighten to keep him. Then he moves to stand on his own.

"My father did not intend for me to be a slave."

"He intended for you to learn," Hannibal agrees, watching Will as Will watches the horses. "And you, for all your scrolls and mighty words, are ignorant of the lessons of life that these horses, for one, will teach you."

Will swallows, says nothing, but Hannibal can already see the tightness in his jaw suggesting stubbornness is to come. Will is a beautifully predictable creature when observed and not merely stared at.

"Patience," Hannibal lists, "hard work, selflessness. Inner peace and the deep connection that comes with raising a living creature as your own."

Will considers, finds that deep down there is a flutter of excitement when he looks at the little animal that had approached him as cautiously as he himself approaches the man at his side. In increments and slow strides.

"Will you not teach me of war?" he sneers, but the tone behind the word is somewhat softened, now, no longer as vicious. Will does not look at the man when he asks, just follows the progress of his - already he thinks of her as his - horse across the field.

Hannibal’s attention does not shift from the boy, and he gives little more reaction than the lift of a brow.

“What could I hope to teach the peacemaker, of such primitive brutality?” he quips, with a tenor that betrays a pluck of annoyance. “For now, you will concentrate on horses, and recall that even Hercules was made to clean stables in his labors. Perhaps once you’ve shown your competence with mucking stalls, we’ll move on to the hounds.”

A cluck of Hannibal’s tongue brings his horse pacing closer, a snort of hot breath against his hand, and her little one trailing behind her. “I know dogs,” Will answers, eyes narrowed. “I’ve taken care of them before.”

“Clever beyond your years,” agrees the man blithely, swinging himself up onto the mare without bridle or reins, and nothing beneath him but for his chiton, tucked against his thighs. He does not offer a ride to the boy, working the gate open from astride the mare, and bringing her back to the stable, gate left open for Will to close it behind.

Will waits for the little filly to follow along, but she does not pass the gate where he stands, kicking at the ground and twitching her little tail, restless. Will coaxes, tries with more sweet grass, with soft words and quiet whistles, finds the horse entirely unresponsive before she merely picks her way back to the rest of the herd, interest already lost in the boy who looks on, sullen.

By the time Will shuffles into the stable, the horse has been brought to post, a rope laid across her neck and Hannibal’s broad hands against her body. She whinnies high and her foal calls back to her, loud and curious from the pasture up the way.

Rich smells, earthy, of horses and their waste, the grassy warmth of hay, the crisp bite of the fir planks that form the walls of the place. Sharp eyes observe them from the lofts above, cats with suspicious dispositions and swinging tails, fed fat on the mice that would otherwise lay siege to the store of grain. Hannibal regards the boy, allowing himself a moment longer than strictly necessary, from the corner of his eye, to take in the lazy length of him, skinny legs and folded arms, shoulders slumped against the doorframe.

“There is a brush upon the bench,” Hannibal informs him.

Will sighs, pushing himself further into the stables and taking up the heavy boar-bristle brush Hannibal had indicated. He runs the thick bristles over his palm before approaching the horse.

He’s seen the servants groom the creatures before, always immersed in their task when Will had fed the dogs in the mornings. The horse seems to regard the brush with a pleased sort of calm, used to the treatment and relaxed with Hannibal there.

The boy approaches the horse and brings up the brush to stroke over her shoulder, a smooth motion that seems to do nothing at all.

"Harder," Hannibal tells him, amused, bringing his hand up to press to Will’s to demonstrate, as the mare stands still and contented. Will takes a breath and allows Hannibal to show him the motion before taking it up himself, but finding, infuriatingly, that Hannibal does not step back, but instead brackets him against the creature.

Setting his jaw, Will doesn’t stop the long, firm strokes that send up puffs of dust from the horse’s coat, nor does he turn his eyes to the man standing near him.

Over him.

Against him.

A hand on either side of the boy, resting against the mare, Hannibal’s body pressed broad against the slight little thing beneath him. Will shivers as his hair is moved by a breath that parts the man’s lips, and an audible smile darkens Hannibal’s words.

“What would you know of war, peacemaker?” he muses, returning to Will’s previous question. “You know already the histories, perhaps. Boundaries mapped and erased, redrawn again and again. Names of kings, as though those men themselves shared any hand in their own destinies, in the fate of their empires.”

Hannibal’s palm lifts before Will can swipe the brush against it, harder than necessary, and he instead slips his touch down the boy’s wrist, fingertips rough as they follow to the bend of his elbow, up over scarcely developed arms. The draped sleeve of his tunic is slid aside as Hannibal brings his hand to curl against the boy’s shoulder, pale as the fabric that lays against it, and softer than.

“You have never heard the rising cry of men marching a field, who shout to the gods knowing that if they did not, they would weep as if they were women,” the man snarls softly. “Braced your shield, muscles hot as Hephaestus, against the back of men amongst whom you have slept and trained and laughed, pushing them towards death as you feel a shield against your own in kind.” Hannibal releases the boy’s shoulder and instead strokes back through Will’s well-kept curls, sweeping them back from his face. “Felt the sting of spear-tip and the joy of losing yourself in fury as it cuts, looked across a battleground singing somber with the moans of the dying and wounded.”

“No,” Hannibal sighs, and turns his nose against the boy’s hair, pressed flushed against him with a foot slid between the boy’s own sandaled feet, as though to part his legs. “But you will, spoiled boy. I will teach you of war, and you will _beg_ for the burden of brushing horses.”

Will stills, allows his eyes to close and thinks back to the baths, when the man behind him was some stranger Will never had to see again. He had never taken an interest in his father's affairs, knew nothing of his sponsorship.

He feels Hannibal move to direct Will’s wrist towards the horse's belly, allowing Will to brush her himself after.

Will considers Hannibal’s words, his own hatred of war, the fear beneath it, the desperation of an entire army marching to death. He does not want it. Does not want to learn or experience it. But he refuses to show the man fear.

Instead, Will watches the horse.

The chore itself - and Will supposes it is a chore - is not particularly taxing, almost meditative. But he can feel his hand starting to tire from how hard he holds the brush, how he moves it over the horse.

"You will brush them twice a day," Hannibal murmurs, "in the morning before you let them graze, and in the evening when they return. You will need to pick their hooves, change the straw in the stalls, the oats and the water. You cannot own a horse unless you can care for it. You will earn your mount, Will - her care and her trust - before I ever let you ride her."

"And what will I do the rest of my days?" Will asks, tone low, lips pressing together as he feels Hannibal step closer still, pressing them together in a way Will finds both frightening and exciting.

He swallows.

Waits.

The man’s hand presses against Will’s thigh - the outside of it, only - and does not move further, but it is enough to feel the boy tremble beneath his fingers from that alone.

“Study, in the afternoon,” intones Hannibal, nearly tilting the boy’s head with the movement of his own, pressed so close as this. “Languages, geographies, histories. I am required to take you to the symposium, for your arts and philosophy.”

A stray finger catches Will’s as the brush returns to stroke again, a touch grazed against his hand.

“In the morning, you will train. Practice. As the Greeks fight - spear and shield and sword. And in archery and axe, a superior weapon, used rarely here,” he continues, a low murmur so near to the boy’s ear that he can feel the man’s breath against it. “I would enjoy a partner with which to spar, when we are not at war, and so I must make you into a sufficient one for myself. That will be my measure.”

The slightest movement of Hannibal’s fingertips slips the hem of Will’s chiton just a little higher up his leg.

“And in the evening,” Hannibal begins, a hesitation in his words, in his breath itself, as his fingers settle against the boy’s bare thigh. It hangs heavy between them, threat and promise both, for heartbeats shared hammering between their bodies.

Before Hannibal’s held breath breaks on a rough laugh, and he gently shoves the boy towards the horse, stepping away from him. “More grooming, I imagine, considering how long this is taking you.”

Will releases a breath of his own and presses trembling fingers to the horse's flank until he settles.

"You are distracting me," he mutters, but says nothing more. He doesn’t allow himself to worry over the sheer amount of work, he forces himself not to think of what will happen tonight when he is finally released from his chores and supper.

He wonders if he will be allowed to sleep in his room or if he will have to share Hannibal’s.

Another gentle shiver takes him and he swallows, working in wider arcs over the horse now, the brush heavy but comfortable in his hand, before he kneels to brush her legs as well.

He feels Hannibal’s scrutiny against his skin until he suddenly doesn't. It's strange, the man so silent in his movements, so determined to unsettle Will... as Will is to disobey him. Perhaps they are but two creatures in an impasse, neither yet trusting the other to show more than wariness and resistance.

Will can see Hannibal out in the field again, when he looks as he walks around the horse to brush her other side as well, and wonders why he already misses the heat of the man behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a moment, Hannibal imagines that he can nearly hear the slip of linen against the boy’s skin, sliding higher as he braces his legs against his chest. He knows he is bare beneath, though the table does not allow Hannibal to see, and better for it, as the thought alone is enough to give Hannibal pause. The silence held, as Hannibal’s breath burns in his lungs, is a victory for the boy that the man was not yet willing to yield, and his eyes narrow. He reaches with a broad hand and slaps the flat of it against Will’s leg to send them to the floor.
> 
> Though only an instant, the contact lingers electric in Hannibal’s stinging fingers.

Despite Hannibal’s insistence on daily greeting Will, he finds that - if anything - the only measurable change is that Will’s eyes narrow slightly more each time, and his posture grows more rigid. Granted, it’s done still without touching him between the legs - only slipping against his thigh - and mostly to rankle the boy who stiffens so acutely whenever Hannibal draws near him, but there is a dawning displeasure in the entire experience, when even the joy of the boy’s ire is not to be found.

Will is like a ghost, pale and sullen, who does as he is asked and no more than. If Hannibal moves him, the boy moves - if Hannibal threatens him, an apology. If he is kind to him, there is no more reaction than if he had shouted, which he has not done, but has found himself precariously close to doing if only to pull a reaction from the stubborn child. He wonders what has become of the impertinent, loud little thing who fussed and huffed around the baths - that decadent creature bent bare on all fours like a wild animal, who held Hannibal in irritable fascination with his bright blue eyes, the clever mind behind them, and the lithe body that carried him sighing through the chambers.

He wonders why he cares, rather than simply feels a profound gratitude that the boy has chosen silence rather than noise.

And so eventually, over a breakfast taken in his own room, Hannibal decides against greeting Will at all. If the boy will not have it, he will not have the boy, and they can while away their years in mutual misery, and imagine what might have been had they not so summarily decided to despise each other.

Cup still in hand from his meal, Hannibal passes Will on way to the study, and Will stops, breath drawn in bracing for Hannibal to come near him. His breath is still held when Hannibal proceeds past for their lesson without a second glance.

For a long moment, Will waits, determined to greet his master with the same put-upon loathing he has every morning - more after he had spent a week filthy before Hannibal had revealed there to be private baths in the house - and finding the other uninterested in correcting his error in routine.

It irks him, the weeks of persistence, allowing Will to groom the horses every second day when he had proven the task to be genuinely too taxing for his unpracticed hands, the weeks of insisting on the courtship Will is uninterested in...

And now nothing. Without so much as a word to Will regarding.

The boy waits, stubborn, before the impatience, the curiosity, pulls him after his mentor in a petulant, deliberate stride. He offers only a haughty glance as the man’s eyes follow him across the room to where Will sits.

"Recite for me. As yesterday," Hannibal asks. Will doesn’t answer him until Hannibal growls his displeasure against his cup. Then Will just raises an eyebrow.

"I did not know you saw me, without your customary greeting."

A sip, slow, and without raising his eyes from the parchments spread before him, Hannibal responds, “I did not know you do not know the meaning of recitation.” He sets his cup against one side of the scroll, and spreads his hand across the other to press it flat, standing comfortably behind his desk.

The text from which they were reciting the day before - a primer in Latin - lays unattended amongst the countless papers stacked and spread across the desk, certainly not the note that Hannibal reads now. He looks up only after the silence has drawn long, parting his lips with his tongue.

“It is not necessary after the bargain is struck, so you said,” the man states, letting his attention hold on the boy for only so long as it takes to measure the petulance blooming warm across his cheeks. “Recite, Will. Now.”

Will feels a strange tug in his chest at the words, his words, from the very first greeting here. He had found, of late, that it was easier to stiffen his muscles and imitate indignation than to allow his body to respond with heat and trembling, as it had started to. An odd conditioning to the feel of Hannibal’s rough but gentle hands.

"You do not follow necessity, you create your own," Will interjects, licks his lips and adds a coy 'sir' at the end to soothe the rudeness of his words, finds that Hannibal merely blinks at him, expectant, very close to impatient.

Will considers, feels his body still hum with energy, with the need to fulfill that brief point of touch they had missed this morning. Will licks his lips and stands up to recite, hands behind his back and eyes closed to remember, words flowing without difficulty but with a petulant weight, a tone to make sure Hannibal knows of his displeasure.

But he completes it, without incident or error, before bringing his hand to his lips to chew absently against his thumbnail, eyes down and expression suddenly resigned, expectant. 

"My throat is dry," Will complains softly, directs his eyes to Hannibal. "May I have a drink?"

The request is simple, genuine, and Hannibal allows it with a sigh and a gesture that Will retrieve the water himself. He finds himself somewhat speechless when the boy leans across the desk to take Hannibal's cup to drink from. His brows lift first in surprise, and then in expectation, amused to watch Will’s eyes level on his own as the boy takes a sip in what he must - Hannibal guesses - presume to be a look of conviction.

And then he sputters, nearly spilling the rest of it.

“Do not,” Hannibal snaps softly, eyes narrowed. Will brings a hand to his lips, looks towards the cup, and Hannibal’s fingers splay across the desk as if in anticipation. “Do not spit that out. Do not spit it to the floor. You wished for it and you will swallow it. Do not _waste_.”

He knows the boy thinks of it anyway, and watches as he holds the goat’s milk in his mouth, the boy’s eyes somehow sharpened and widened all at once.

“Swallow.”

Will shakes his head, once.

“ _Swallow_. It’s good for you,” Hannibal remarks. “You are far too thin. If I did not insist you share meals with me, I would think you do not eat.” He watches a bit of the white liquid well in the corner of Will’s lips, and trickle slowly down to his chin. Without another word, Hannibal reaches to trace his thumb through it, and bring it to his own lips instead. He tastes the richness of the milk, grassy and sweet, and beneath it the boy himself, just as green. For the first time in his presence, Hannibal considers that he could devour the boy directly, silence him beneath his lips and taste spring in the unfurling of Will’s mouth to accept his own.

He makes no move to do so, but allows the flavor of the thought to linger on his tongue.

Flushed to ruddy pink, Will forces himself to swallow and scarcely restrains himself from bringing the cup back against the desk so hard it spills. “It’s barbaric,” Will seethes. He runs the back of his hand along his lower lip, mopping up any of the pale traces left there, any lingering sensation of Hannibal’s only touch against him. “Drinking the milk of beasts.”

A beat lingers between them, in which Hannibal holds his tongue, before bringing his cup back to its station, holding down his messages. “What is barbaric,” Hannibal retorts, “is to insult a man’s food when you are in his home, and so perhaps you do not - at risk of seeming _uncivilized_ \- wish to partake in any more today. One does not wish to offend delicate sensibilities.”

His eyes raise, and linger for a moment longer on the unhappy twist of Will’s lips.

“Recite.”

Will’s throat tightens.

"I have,” he replies softly.

Hannibal simply takes up his cup to deliberately drink, savor the taste, swallow.

"Again,” he tells him.

\---

Will finds that sleeping without supper, without breakfast or an afternoon meal, sends his stomach to twisting and roiling, curling him in his bed until the early hours of the morning. It is just crawling to dawn when he is woken by a slave, and finds that Hannibal seems just as determined to ignore his own personal protocol as he had the day before.

So Will makes his way, unsteady, to the stables alone. Untouched.

He's brushed two of the horses, released them to the field before dizziness takes him and he slumps back against one of the heavy wooden dividers, hand to his eyes, feeling very much that he wants to cry.

What had he done to upset the man so, that he would no longer touch him? Had Will truly broken this between them within a month of his being in Hannibal’s home?

He thinks of his father, how Hannibal had promised the man a constant report on his progress, and grits his teeth as he feels the pathetic burn of tears against his throat - shame - and swallows, resists allowing them to burn his cheeks as well.

Will scrambles his feet against the ground in an effort to stand when he hears Hannibal within the stables with him, and finds that his ire of the day before has dulled to a cool indifference as he regards the boy, eyes lingering against the hem of his chiton that sits much higher on his thighs than it should, in Will’s struggle to push himself to standing.

Hannibal thinks of the foals, freshly born and startled by their own newfound existence, gathering up onto jittery legs still wet with afterbirth, pushed to stand with a nuzzle of their mother’s nose. Will trembles as he catches a hand against the rough wood of a stall, refusing to look towards the man who regards him so openly, and Hannibal takes him by the elbow to bring him fully to his feet.

Still unsteady, but upright, Hannibal releases the boy just as quickly as he grasped him, and steps past towards the horse snorting impatience at its lack of attention.

He could scold the boy for his slacking, turn cruel against him and berate him for his disobedience despite the hunger that Hannibal knows - all too well - burns hot as embers in his belly.

He does not. Hannibal lets Will lean, and takes up the brush that was dropped into the straw to brush the horse himself, instead.

Will feels the guilt sting more, keeps his eyes down as he listens to Hannibal murmur softly to the horse he brushes, how quickly he is done with the task compared to Will’s floundering in it. He adjusts his tunic to sit properly and lets his fingers linger on the hem, as Hannibal’s had so often done - every morning - before something changed.

Will thinks again of the baths, of the man’s attention on him as he had bent and teased. Now, he feels his fingers tightening to grip the fabric harder, pulling it up unintentionally as his mind spirals further into thought, of how he should offer himself in apology, allow the man to take his pleasure - his by right, with their accord - and see if that changes the dynamic between them again.

He blinks when the horse is released to the field, passes by him on its way. Will does not let go of the hem as Hannibal comes to look at him again, a gentle regard where his eyes do not linger and Will finds that he wants them to.

"Will you finish?" Hannibal asks him, and Will finds himself nodding, pride still hot in him, the need to prove himself in the man’s eyes simply to know he can. Will nods.

"I will."

There is a brief gathering around the corners of Hannibal’s eyes as he returns the brush to Will’s hold.

"Good." He turns to go, Will desperately clutching the brush and his own clothes behind him. "You will take breakfast with me when you are finished."

Will makes a sound almost like a moan, but it doesn’t keep Hannibal in the stable. Instead, Will pushes himself to find the next horse in need of his care, and recites to it softly as he works, finding it really does seem to speed up the chore, for them both.

By the time he is done, all the horses brushed pristine black and released to dirty themselves in the field again - Will notes with dismay, as the last to go immediately settles against the earth and rolls exuberantly against it - he can smell the food from the house. A spread of fried breads and goat cheese, mashed vegetables and onions cut into sharp-smelling slices, dried meats and fresh pomegranates, split wide to spill their seeds into a metal bowl at the center.

It is more food than needed for the two of them, no wife or children to feed, the slaves given their own meals later, in their own quarters, and Will’s stomach churns at the sight of it. Even so, he grasps a cup first, to drink down the sweet water within, and Hannibal watches as it slicks down his chin in his fervor for it.

“Slowly,” the man cautions him. “Or you will be ill on it.”

Hannibal returns his attention to the parchment spread beside his plate. He dips his reed in the vessel of ink, and continues writing in his own hand, rather than allowing his slave to take dictation for him.

Will manages to force himself to quench his thirst slower, drawing his wrist over his lips to dry them after, eyes lingering on Hannibal's work without actively attempting to read it. He can only imagine what things Hannibal is writing regarding him, can only imagine what his father will think.

Will takes up a plate to serve himself, Hannibal's own by his side already, untouched.

The food is exquisite, though entirely a simple collection, and Will wonders if it would taste so divine to him if he had not been starved for it.

Will tries everything. Relishes the flavors together and separate, enjoys the sharp sweetness of the onion with the bread, the soft sweetness of the pomegranate with the cheese. And all the while watches Hannibal write, letters deliberate and neat, unlike what Will had expected of the man - realizes he had truly expected nothing at all.

"Will you take me to the Symposium?" he asks after a while, belly comfortably full and fingers fidgeting with a piece of bread before he pulls a piece free and presses it between his lips, carefully licking his finger clean when he withdraws it.

The sound of his lips sucking the scarlet stains of fruit and liquid butter from his skin is almost deafening to Hannibal, and without even needing to see it, the imagining of it alone is enough to still his reed.

“When you have earned it,” the man responds. “When it does not take you the better part of a day to do your work.” Clearing his throat, Hannibal dips his reed again into the ink, and resumes writing. “When I am certain that you will not be an embarrassment to me.”

In truth, the man dreads the thought of it. Symposia - while noble in intention - had the tendency to devolve quickly from shared discourses and debates on articles of higher thought, into gossip, gluttony, and eventually, enthusiastic groping of whomever passed by, once all those in attendance were ruddy with wine. The man himself had never been recipient to such fondling, too unusual still, and imposing, but the brazen questions that were raised to him about his origins were exhausting.

Until this boy, he had not intended to attend again, and now he must.

With Will.

Hannibal’s eyes lift, though his head and hands do not move. “You will be expected to lay beside me, on the kline. To not do so would be a curiosity about which eager tongues would wag, and an insult upon myself.”

Will feels his cheeks flush, brings another piece of bread between his lips and chews. Will wonders if his heart suddenly beats too fast because he dreads the day or aches for it.

His eyes rest once more on the parchment and he brings his thumb between his lips to work it clean of oil and juice, almost without thinking. He is only aware of the deliberate observation when his skin prickles in a pleasant shiver, and only then raises his eyes to meet Hannibal’s dark ones, surprised somewhat to find the man genuinely hungry for him.

Will’s lips curl into a smile and he pulls his fingers free of his mouth again.

"How must I earn it?" he asks, settling his arms against the table now that he has finished his meal, his chin on top of them, back arched to accommodate the movement.

Finally, Hannibal sets aside his reed, balanced in the ink pot, and allows the parchment to curl in on itself. It is handed to the slave who steps to his side, and she takes it without need for explanation as to where it will go.

Hannibal folds his hands together, his food yet untouched, and his eyes crinkle in petty pleasure at the way Will’s widen and watch the scroll taken away. He does not relent the bend in his back, all loose-limbs and lazy posture, and Hannibal follows the curve of it, a memory coiling fierce in his belly of how similarly his spine twisted decadently in the baths when Will went to his hands and knees. Hannibal had watched the water poured over him pool in the small of his back, and slip down his narrow hips, tracing furrows along his skinny legs.

He hums, now, and Will notices how reluctantly and slowly the man finally turns from him, towards his plate.

“It would be a start if I thought you could lay beside me at all, let alone in public,” Hannibal states. “I cannot come near you without you going rigid as a fencepost, and I will not have other men think I am cruel to you when I have not yet been.” He uses a bit of bread to mop up olive oil, golden and speckled with herbs, sprinkling cheese across it. “Perhaps that is an alternative, then, to have you to your beloved symposium sooner. Force my hand against you with your stubbornness, so there is at least cause when you flinch.”

Will regards his master as he eats, feeling that same drop in his stomach knowing the scroll would find its way to his father, knowing that as much as he fears feeling the man press against him, he yearns for it. He yearns for even the slightest touch to him again, with Hannibal’s roughened fingers.

He cannot imagine what he would have to do to earn Hannibal's hand on him in anger.

Will bites his lip and brings his eyes from Hannibal’s lips to his eyes, meeting them until the sensation becomes one of being seen through, cool and indifferent, and Will knows that it is an act just as his own resistance is every morning.

It's exhausting.

And he thinks of how desperately he wants to leave the house, to see people, interact with them, show that he is an educated man already, forced to suffer apprenticeship in an art he cares not for. Will thinks longingly of the baths again, of the private ones within this home where he had basked and stretched not two days before, after their first session with the heavy sword, thinks of how he could enjoy the company of others in the public baths instead.

Will sits back, brings his legs up to set against the edge of his seat and curls one arm around his knees to hold them close, frowning, affecting fussiness simply to see the man before him respond.

For a moment, Hannibal imagines that he can nearly hear the slip of linen against the boy’s skin, sliding higher as he braces his legs against his chest. He knows he is bare beneath, though the table does not allow Hannibal to see, and better for it, as the thought alone is enough to give Hannibal pause. The silence held, as Hannibal’s breath burns in his lungs, is a victory for the boy that the man was not yet willing to yield, and his eyes narrow. He reaches with a broad hand and slaps the flat of it against Will’s leg to send them to the floor.

Though only an instant, the contact lingers electric in Hannibal’s stinging fingers.

“I am not a fool, though you think yourself far cleverer than me,” Hannibal intones. “And I will not be made to be one in my own home. I have attempted to emulate a courtship with you, and you have resisted. I will not bend my knees for one who wishes for no more than to see them bent, and I will not waste my time in seeking that which does not exist.”

He stabs a finger roughly into half a pomegranate, tearing through the translucent skin and sending crimson juice down his fingers, dripping from his palm. “I am within my rights to take what I wish of you, whenever I might wish it, and I may do so, still, if only for my own amusement. Until such time, there is no more need to pretend as if there is more to this than what has been shown. A spoiled boy whose skills extend so far as mucking stalls, and his fat general.”

Will can't bring himself to enjoy the insult Hannibal has so effortlessly thrown at himself when the rest of the words hum so loud against his skin.

Hannibal can take what he wants, should, by all rights of their agreement, and yet he never has, never once. Will brings a palm down to rub against the warm skin Hannibal had struck and when he bites his lip this time it is not in blatant teasing.

Will stands from the table, forces his shoulders to straighten, and makes his way to their study on quiet feet and no more brutal words from either of them.

When Hannibal finds Will there some time later, the boy stands without prompting, and recites without Hannibal having to force his hand.

\---

Will has counted six mornings without Hannibal's touch, without the warm fingers curled so gently beneath his chin to raise it, always a far more intimate thing for Will than the brief touch against his thigh.

He wakes early, finds himself lingering in the doorway to Hannibal's chambers, torn between his own stubbornness and the want for this feud to go away. He stays there long enough to hear Hannibal's breathing deepen as he wakes, to hear him shift in bed, before Will’s courage fails him and he moves briskly back to his own rooms.

When he waits for Hannibal to touch him once more he finds himself disappointed, but Hannibal's eyes lingering. They hold, a moment, each other's gaze, and then Hannibal moves towards the study without another word and Will grits his teeth in frustration of his own foolish making.

It is going to be a very long three years, mulls Hannibal, sliding low into his seat for another tedious day of hearing the same languages and histories he knows already, from a boy who does not care about them beyond the necessity of remembrance for recitation.

He accepts his cup, as is his habit, from the slave who brings it to him, amusing himself by asking her, “Does Ganymede take rest, I wonder? When his delicate hands are too tired to carry Zeus’ cup to him, and he instead lounges lazy to recover from the burdens he bears.”

She offers him a slight smile but no comment on his inquiry, and Hannibal leans across the desk, lacing his fingers together.

“I have decided against our study this morning. I wish to train myself, since at least I will to myself respond, and that is how I will spend my day,” Hannibal decides. “Do what you will.”

Will regards him a moment before nodding and leaving the words he wants to say trapped behind his teeth. He watches Hannibal stand, fists his hands in his tunic as Hannibal passes him on his way to the door.

"May I watch?" Will asks, quick words, almost breathless for how long he has held them, mulled over them, adjusted the letters to create these, instead of the poetry he had wished to share. "Please," he adds, "I will not dishonor myself, or you, by breaking our contract. I do not wish to quarrel."

Hannibal does not turn for a long time, then the tension in his shoulders shift and he hums a brief note of consideration.

"I will not have cruel words against my skills, peacemaker." He tells him, "I do not need your _wisdom_ today."

"The wisest of the wise may err," Will concedes with a smile, and finds his heart beating too quickly when his master turns to him. Will swallows, directs his eyes away before standing and taking a step closer to Hannibal. "I drown in anger the things I fear,” he admits softly. "I drown myself in words to keep that fear at bay, but they choke me and mangle. And sometimes strike and cut in ways I do not mean them."

It is as close to a true apology as Will can manage without begging for it, and he bites his lip before lifting his eyes again.

"'There are times when fear is good’,” he recites quietly. "'It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.'"

They are silent, then, the words of Aeschylus between them, before Will swallows and softly asks again.

"May I watch you as you train?"

It is a brave thing the boy does, to broach the barricades between them, and Hannibal feels a weight unseat itself from his shoulders as if lowering a shield after too long at practice. His expression softens, tension unfurrowed from the corners of his eyes, despite how his own pettiness tugs at him to maintain his solemn disregard.

He will not.

He cannot.

Not when Will looks towards him with such earnest desperation, honest hope in his eyes above the blush of shame that darkens fair cheeks.

Hannibal steps nearer still, the closest he has intentionally come to the boy in days, and with the side of his finger tucked beneath Will's chin, he tilts his head up towards him. He does not reach for his thigh yet, does not lean to chastely kiss him, but merely holds Will there, and allows them the space to breathe so near each other.

"You will join me," the man finally agrees. "Fetch your spear."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As with a weapon, the best lives are balanced so as not to weigh heavily one way or the other. I am simply adding a ballast.”
> 
> Hannibal's fingers tease the soft brush of hair between the boy’s legs, and Hannibal draws a breath so quietly that only Will can hear it as the man feels his body respond to the heat beneath his hand. Will’s tunic is raised so high that any passing by them would see him entirely, exposed.
> 
> “Isn’t that right?” he asks Will, head canted to the side, lips pressed into a slight smile. “The general and the peacemaker.”

“The general wishes for you to return.”

Will drops his hand, watching as the little filly bolts away into the pasture, kicking up rain-damp earth and grass as she goes. He turns to look over his shoulder, arms hanging over the fence, and regards the slave curiously.

She regards him with just as much passive politeness, unperturbed by Will’s slight frown.

“You scared her off.”

The young woman shrugs a shoulder, hands folded behind her back. She’s not much older than Will, copper-skinned and black-haired, Hannibal’s closest attendant - scribe, table-setter, the one entrusted to take care of his garments and his chambers - and she arches a brow as she regards the boy.

“Not on purpose,” she answers, and before Will can manage a rebuff past his lips, she interjects. “The general wishes for you to return.”

“Why? It’s too early for supper, too early even for training,” he frowns, and she sighs.

“Does it matter why?”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I can, because I’m his, not yours,” she corrects Will, eyes narrowing in a brief pleasure. “And it doesn’t matter why. You know that, so come. He told me not to return without you.”

Will squints at her for a moment more before turning back to watch the horses - his, in particular - before finally pushing off the fence to drag his sandaled feet behind her.

He hears a warm cacophony of voices from the house, but the slave provides no particular look or direction beyond ensuring Will has arrived as requested, and following through the door behind him. There are already the smells of food ahead of him - rich spices and pungent meats and the sweetness of fresh-baked breads - but he stops outside the doorway to listen a moment more.

“You remember,” calls one voice, already thick with wine, “you remember the man with the dog?”

A laugh catches the group, and Hannibal hums amusement before answering, “We thought he was crazy.”

“He most certainly _was_.”

“Even still,” Hannibal agrees, “his dog fought better than many men. Better than he himself, I saw in passing, flailing his sword about as if it had been just pulled from the anvil still glowing hot.”

“Perhaps not crazy then,” joins a third voice. “Perhaps very wise, to bring his own rear guard.”

A fourth adds, with a laugh, “And one not in need of his own outfitting!”

Will frowns as the room fills with laughter again. These are military men, men of battle and shield and armor, Will has nothing wise to say to them and wishes not to hear their stories. He wonders why Hannibal had sought him back, then, for this.

He had apologized and Hannibal accepted it. In the week since, they have been more civil, gentler, and no closer in their defined courtship - though Will has found he no longer tenses when he’s touched, parts his lips more freely for Hannibal to kiss him there. The civility still does not explain the man’s desire to have Will here, when he knows the boy will be powerless with his words.

Perhaps, then, it is a test of his silence.

The slave makes her way through to the room and is greeted with a different tone of laughter, a darker edge that makes Will uncomfortable to feel against his skin. But she shows no outward reaction, does nothing but deliver her message to her master, who thanks her and allows her leave to go. Will notes Hannibal does not hush the men in their leering, but that his jaw locks into a set of irritation and displeasure in his silence.

"Go."

Will blinks, returned from his thoughts by the slave’s gentle voice. She gestures, unnecessarily, and offers Will a small smile to go with the raised eyebrow of expectation. He swallows, looks beyond her into the room once more, before adjusting his tunic, checking his sandals are clean, that mud had not gotten onto his legs in his walk back to the house.

So satisfied, he lingers still, a nervousness tugging at Will’s chest that he cannot place, that had risen with the grotesque laughter that had greeted the slave. He knows what he is to Hannibal, but what will he be to those men?

With a sigh Will straightens his shoulders and enters the room himself, head ducked enough to be demure, but eyes up and roaming, taking in the room around himself quickly before settling on Hannibal. 

_Gods, but he is lovely_ and Hannibal's loins stir at the sight of him. Embarrassment already creeping as flowering vines across Will's cheeks, down his neck, and hair made wild by the wind, there is a flash of eyes blue as the Aegean beneath and Hannibal feels even more stir than simply that which is beneath his chiton.

He does not stand, but merely widens an arm towards Will, as if welcoming another man towards the table.

"My _eromenos_ , Will," he introduces softly, before turning towards the men at the table who look on in approval. "Will, my brothers."

In spirit, perhaps. In war. In body, none resembles the other - two lean Greeks whose hair is cropped into the short curls of a soldier, a heavy-set man with a long beard, and an Egyptian, Will guesses, who regards Hannibal much more than the pale skin boy on display before them. Their names are given, each in turn, and Will inclines his head, eyes lowered, and stands still with his hands folded behind his back.

Propriety and custom are foremost, moreso with guests in attendance than not, and Hannibal stands from his stool and moves towards Will, whose attention lifts to his shoulders but no higher. Rough fingers press the soft fabric of his chiton to his inner thigh, and Hannibal tips the boy’s chin up until their eyes are forced to meet.

“You smell of horses,” Hannibal murmurs, pleasure in his voice, and leans to brush a chaste kiss across Will’s lips but finds only his cheek when the boy turns his head aside enough to avoid it.

An instant, unnoticed by the others, but drawn long between the two who stand so near each other, of displeasure wrought across Hannibal’s brow, before he turns from the boy to return to his seat.

There is one stool remaining, towards which Will wanders, but with a quick gesture from Hannibal and a glance to his slave, it is removed without word.

“We fought together,” Hannibal tells Will, as the men resume their wine and food. “Minor skirmishes.” The men laugh, and Hannibal glances to the boy, explaining with a glint in his eyes. “Marathon.”

The stool so removed by the time Will reaches it, he has no choice but to stand, a beautiful thing at Hannibal's side. He lifts his eyes to the seated men once more, despite his claim and personal distaste for war, he feels awed watching the men before him. 

He remembers again Hannibal's words to him when he had first arrived, words that still ring cold and hollow in his chest when he thinks of them. Words of war from someone who had fought it, not someone who merely spoke in gilded words and pretty phrasing.

"Bravery that I have only read of," Will says at last, returning his eyes to the floor in supplication. "The bravery of legend. I am learning only slowly the art at which you all excel."

He stands carefully still, knowing that doing so for the rest of the time the men are gathered will be unbecoming, awkward. He is expected to join them at the table, and would have, had there been a chance. He turns to Hannibal, lifts his lips in a small smile, blinks.

The answer is pleasing, to all gathered, and to Hannibal in particular whose approval is signaled by a slight tip of his chin, upward, and a faint smile.

“Come,” he tells the boy, pushing his stool back a little from the table. Hands resting against his legs, visibly strong beneath the drapes of fabric over them, Hannibal’s implication is clear, and he raises a brow in expectation. There is little mind paid to it from the other men, engaged in regaling themselves and chiding the others, until Will hesitates.

He watches, flushed, feels his heart beat faster against his ribs, his throat, and the silence draws long enough to push him to movement. He approaches Hannibal carefully, allows a hand to settle on his shoulder, splay there, before Will ducks another shy little smile away from the others.

He does not ask, he knows he must.

When Will sits, he settles as comfortably as he can against Hannibal’s thigh, perched on it as a bird, nervous and fidgeting. He does not shiver, he does not draw away in fear or disgust or any other emotion Hannibal claims to see and Will is unsure he expresses.

He exhales quickly, a shocked, barely voiced sound, when an arm loops comfortably around his stomach and pulls him back further against his master. Hannibal brings the boy in tight against him, forces Will to adjust himself to balance over both of Hannibal’s legs, rather than just one, and keeps his arm wrapped around his belly as he reaches for his wine.

“Two to one, we were outnumbered by the Persians,” Hannibal murmurs, nearly a purr against Will’s throat. “No horses in our band, and many in theirs, and the favor of the gods that moved their cavalry elsewhere and gave us opening to descend.”

With a brief nuzzle against Will’s jaw, Hannibal leans away enough to sip his wine, turning with dark-eyed pleasure to the other men at the table.

“And we drove them screaming into the sea.”

“The swamps,” points out one of the Greeks. “The swamps took as many lives as we did.”

“And who put them there?” answers the other Greek. “We were blessed, it was divined for us to drive them out of our lands, to be swallowed by them.”

Hannibal listens, and hopes that Will is doing the same. He must know, the spoiled child, what sacrifices have been made for him - what was risked and wagered and won - by the men that Will has so summarily dismissed as barbaric. He rests a hand against Will’s knee, and stretches to snare a fig from the bowl, to bring it to the boy’s lips.

Will raises his eyes just enough to see Hannibal before he obediently parts his lips to take the offering, the juice sweet, fresh. He does not snare the fruit, he takes his time to carefully take it from the hand feeding him.

Will knows only the stories, now being brought to life by the men before him, like heroes from the pages of his scrolls, that Will had read, enthralled, as a child, had been taught and made to remember. He lives in an age of Gods and monsters and men among them. A part of him, small, childish, delights in hearing this, in reliving it in his mind with details no scroll had ever listed.

Another part feels trapped, lost here where he cannot control the conversation, can barely contribute; a sixteen-year-old boy with grand notions of peace and lack of experience to see that peace through.

His lips touch to Hannibal's fingertips and he allows the man to trace them, parting them once he swallows, again, for Hannibal's pleasure. The hand against his knee splays warm, slides up to caress his thigh and Will’s shoulders straighten, the flush in his cheeks darkens.

Hannibal wants nothing more than to taste the heat of Will’s skin, to press his fingers and his mouth against every inch of it, devour the boy as readily as the boy devoured the fig, another offered now in kind. He watches, eyes hooded, as soft lips obediently curl around his fingers, allowing them to rest against Will’s mouth a moment more before bringing his hand, sticky with juice, to rest against Will’s thigh again.

Higher, now, his tunic ruched up around Hannibal’s wrist, to press against the tender skin of his inner thigh.

“I did not know you were courting,” one of the men notes, wine-bright cheeks and a look of interest towards the little thing snared in Hannibal’s lap.

“He is Euthymius’ son,” answers Hannibal, returning a hand to his food without removing the other from Will’s leg. “A favor owed and gladly repaid, to return him as a man.”

“And enjoy him as a boy in the meantime,” notes the Egyptian, dark amusement beneath his words, and a brow raised.

Hannibal hums, shrugs a shoulder and curls his fingers tighter against Will’s thigh. “One accepts the customs of the land in which they live,” he responds, blithely, before his eyes narrow in pleasure. “Especially when they fill one’s bed so beautifully.”

Laughter, from all, and Hannibal grins behind his wine glass.

For once, Will is happy his role in public is to be silent and demure unless addressed; he has nothing to say. All he knows is his body is responding to the softest, barest of touches and he cannot control it, does not know if he wants to.

He trembles, invisible to all gathered but felt acutely by Hannibal, and the man adjusts his position to spread his own legs wider in a recline, forcing Will’s to do the same, palm sliding higher still against the heated skin.

Beyond the table, no one can see, Will knows. But he can see them. One of the Greeks observing him entirely unabashed, eyes hooded from wine and a darker sort of hunger, a jealousy, a need. Will swallows, tilts his head just enough for Hannibal to press his nose along the line of his jaw in a soft affection.

"He is a beautiful boy,” the bearded man notes, and Will is surprised at the softness of Hannibal’s smile at the words, praise laid against his boy.

"And very clever,” Hannibal allows, finally drawing his hand up enough to almost bare Will entirely, holding him fast when Will makes to squirm away. "I will make him as hungry for the thrill of a fight as he is now for his philosophy."

It's a deliberate phrasing, and Will turns to look, to narrow his eyes at the man to find only a raised eyebrow as his answer. Then Hannibal shifts, adjusts his position where he sits and Will feels him hard against him, even as Hannibal's hand holds him secure from falling, close and intimate enough that the sides of his fingers brush the heat of Will’s groin.

Will’s lips part once more, an involuntary gesture, before he licks them and presses them closed.

“You wish to be a philosopher?” asks one of the Greeks, snaring off a bite of bread with a snort. “Discuss how to live a life rather than actually live one yourself? You are a child, aren’t you,” he adds, without rancor, but more a bitter amusement. “It is choosing to delight one’s self,” he continues, gesturing crudely beneath his chiton with a laugh, “rather than delight with another. Hannibal will teach you.”

Hannibal watches the man at some length, a movement in his jaw, the twitch of tension down his neck, but his tone is steady as he responds. “I will,” he agrees. “As with a weapon, the best lives are balanced so as not to weigh heavily one way or the other. I am simply adding a ballast.”

His fingers tease the soft brush of hair between the boy’s legs, and Hannibal draws a breath so quietly that only Will can hear it as the man feels his body respond to the heat beneath his hand. Will’s tunic is raised so high that any passing by them would see him entirely, exposed.

“Isn’t that right?” he asks Will, head canted to the side, lips pressed into a slight smile. “The general and the peacemaker.”

Will’s breath draws quick as Hannibal slides the side of his thumb, cooler by compare to Will’s heated skin, from the base of Will’s cock to its tip. The man himself shows little reaction, outwardly, to the way Will twitches against him, but Will can feel his delight in it against his back.

"A courtship is one learning from another," Will murmurs, voice low to keep the tremors from it as Hannibal's thumb strokes soft against him once more. "You teach me the thrill of battle in the heat of the day. I teach you release in the cool evening."

Laughter, earned by Will and not directed at him has his smile gently widening in victory.

"The general and the peacemaker,” he repeats softly, leaning to take up a piece of bread, several olives, back arching in the process, rubbing his hips deliberately back against Hannibal when he settles once more, lips shiny with oil as he chews an olive.

“Clever boy,” murmurs Hannibal, words tucked softly against his ear as Hannibal tucks a stray curl of hair behind it. He cannot shift his hips to press back against Will in response without unseating them both, held in place by this bright, squirming boy, and delighting in the thrill of it.

“We’ll miss you at the brothels,” remarks one of the Greeks, taunting. “Now that you’ll be kept at home by this one.”

Hannibal regards him, eyes crinkling in the corners before he laughs mildly. “Who said anything about that?”

He isn’t entirely certain whether he means it or not. Certainly there’s no reason to resist, the two indulgences entirely separate in his own mind and the minds of others, but it presents a quandary that surprises him. While it would be untoward to devote one’s self so wholly to a boy in that way, certainly looked at askance if he did not also seek to advance himself on women, he cannot imagine even the wildest of them would be so satisfying as even this, his fingertips touching to Will’s hardening length in a staccato, and stroking once, long against it.

And certainly, none would fill him with such pleasure as the tension he feels through Will’s legs, his back, sees narrow in his bright blue eyes when one of the slaves spares Will’s exposure a passing look from the corner of her eye.

“It would certainly be a pity to leave him alone,” the Egyptian adds with a shrug, bringing his cup to his lips to take a long drink of wine, holding it out towards one of the slaves when it’s empty for him to fill it. “And you can’t take him with you.”

This draws loud laughter and Will finally allows a gentle sound to escape him, shadowed by it, a gentle moan of need as Hannibal’s fingers continue their relentless teasing. He does not want to be here, discussed and regarded and touched this way, where anyone could see were they to look. But Will knows how it will be seen if he were to leave, how Hannibal would be seen. It would be a cruel dishonor.

But, Will wonders mildly, as Hannibal circles his fingers to cup Will fully, turning his head to breathe in the heat of him as Will sits utterly still, is it not a dishonor what Hannibal is doing to him? Discussing conquests he has no right to boast of, and delighting in the idea of visiting a brothel to touch someone other than the boy in his lap.

It fills Will with a terrible cold envy, and he sets the piece of bread between his teeth and tugs it harshly before chewing.

The motion is noticed, but Hannibal gives it no reaction beyond curling his fingers tighter beneath the head of Will’s cock, a firm, languid tug that yields a drip against his skin. His thumb swipes through it, across the slit to work out a little more, before he resumes the subtle strokes turned from his wrist, arm unmoving and sight unseen by the other men at the table.

Conversation unfolds easily amongst the men, lubricated by wine and food. Ruminations on the politics of Athens and speculation on the Persian threat mingling with boasts of conquests in fighting and fucking, and Hannibal navigates the shifting waters easily despite his attention being so wholly focused on Will, squirming now in his lap.

He resettles, once, seating himself back further on the chair as an excuse to press Will’s backside harder against his own arousal, forceful fingers spreading the boy’s legs wide as he continues to stroke him. The heat of his cock is intoxicating, the tremble in his thighs moreso, and the little sounds that Will can’t restrain are most heady and rewarding of all. And Hannibal knows - delights, in fact, in knowing - that the pretty pink flush of Will’s skin is due as much to his own frustrated embarrassment as it is arousal.

How long it lasts, Will is uncertain, he knows that he is trembling hard enough to bounce his foot gently against the stone floor, poised on his toes the way he’s held. He knows that he is close, that his body feels hot and cold and hot all at once and that soon there will be nothing he can do but succumb to it and hope no one at the table notices.

But it seems they no longer pay him mind, having accepted for themselves the fact that their friend - their brother - is courting and that the boy will make an appearance often around them.

They have nothing to say to him but light teasing, and Will has less to say back.

But slowly, the wine stops pouring, the food grows sparse on the large table, and the conversations begin to flow in comfortable circles, winding down the night. Will shifts as though to stand, finds the motion halted, denied him, before turning his head and whispering, just loud enough for Hannibal alone to hear, “When will you let me go?”

Hannibal blinks, a surprise at the sharpness of the boy’s tone, despite the low volume, despite the unsteadiness that wavers through his voice, and laughs.

“Let you go?” he asks aloud, and in one smooth motion - far too strong for Will to resist - he scoops Will up beneath his legs and pivots the boy to straddle him. Standing, with Will wrapped against his waist, he turns a slight smile to his companions.

“Gentlemen,” Hannibal tells them. “If you’ll excuse me. Help yourself as long as you like. I’ve business that needs tending to.”

Amusement rustles amongst them, no indecorous behavior this amongst the customs of the place, among soldiers especially, and the bearded man chuckles into his cup.

“Tend to it thoroughly, general,” he says, lifting his cup in thanks to his host, and with a volley of far more obscene suggestions than a mere tending-to, Hannibal takes his leave towards his room, Will in tow.

Will stays pliant only long enough to be out of sight and earshot of the other men, before he thrashes so violently Hannibal nearly drops him. But he does succeed in getting his feet to the ground, enough to brace, and pushes his palms hard against Hannibal’s chest in anger. It does little to shift the man but Will’s eyes narrow.

“Why?” he asks, voice harsh but barely above a whisper. “Why did you humiliate me?”

Hannibal makes no further motion towards the boy, but Will can see the set of his jaw harden beneath the accusation, the shove. He stretches his hands, curls them tight, and then releases them again.

“Was it that?” he asks, softly, mindful still of the chatter of voices they can hear carrying on merrily behind them. “Should I have spilled your seed across the floor then, since you were so ready to do so, rather than remove you?”

Now, a step, looming over Will until the boy takes a step back from him, and Hannibal’s eyes narrow in a predatorial pleasure.

“No,” he decides. “No, next time I will ignore you entirely. Surely to be unwanted is a lesser humiliation than a flagrant desire, to satisfy their expectations.”

“You could have allowed me a seat of my own,” Will doesn’t relent, “if you wished me present at your side, if you wished me to sit there with you as I had, I could have sat on my own.”

Will’s cheeks are bright with humiliation and arousal both, still so hard beneath the light wool that even the gentlest shift against his cock sends him to soft sounds and biting his lip.

“You could have… asked me. Like a man,” Will finishes, turning his eyes away and curling a hand in the hem of his tunic, missing, already, the phantom touches of Hannibal’s warm, large hand against him, knowing that despite his sharp words he wants him to do it again. And worse, he knows that Hannibal knows the same.

A snarl, lips curling over his teeth, as Hannibal moves closer - startlingly fast - with a hand pressed just beneath Will’s jaw to lift his eyes to him.

“When you are a man, I will treat you like one. Until then you are a boy,” he growls low, just as hard as Will, unabashed when he pushes the length of his body against him to pin him to the wall. His free hand skims Will’s thigh, beneath his chiton, higher to grasp him as he had before and draw a shuddering little moan from lips still slick with oil. He ducks his head to taste it, savor the anger and humiliation and sweet fig juice and spiced olives, and parts the lingering kiss with a quiet gasp.

“You are _my_ boy,” Hannibal insists, “and you will act as such when there are eyes upon us, and when there are not. Do you understand?”

The meek nod is insufficient, and Hannibal pins him a little harder, squeezing around the head of his leaking cock.

“Tell me. Tell me that you understand. That you are my boy.”

“I understand,” Will whispers, eyes wide and heart hammering, body alive with sensation he didn’t know was possible, and he finds himself spreading his thighs as they had been spread at the table, wanting to feel more, to have Hannibal give it to him.

Another shuddering whimper and Will bites his lip, closes his eyes as his cheeks darken still.

“I’m your boy,” he breathes, and despite his obstinance, his anger, his distaste for the men in the other room he knows it is entirely true. And strangely he finds himself more pleased by the notion than repulsed. But the fear is still there, fluttering like moth wings against his heart.

“Yours… Hannibal…”

Hannibal tastes him again, catches the subservient utterances beneath a firm kiss, and finds that they're sweeter than any wine or fruit he could imagine.

With the freedom of movement afforded by their privacy, Hannibal can stroke Will fully, cup his cock and tug in languid pulls until the boy's legs are shaking, until he's begging breathless, senseless little sounds that fill Hannibal's chest until he feels fit to burst. He rubs against him, just as painfully hard, ducking for hips to press to hips, a contact that forces the air from his lungs.

"Remember it," Hannibal snarls suddenly, another kiss crushed against Will's mouth before the man pulls away entirely. "To your room. Go."

Will makes a helpless sound, louder than the others had been and trembles, watches as Hannibal regards him, before licking his bottom lip into his mouth and swallowing. When he moves past Hannibal it is with straight shoulders and a raised chin. Proud and poised and regal.

He can feel the man’s eyes against him, hears him sigh out a word in a language Will doesn’t speak, harsh and guttural, but appreciative, praising.

By the time Will reaches his room he’s shaking harder, weak and needy and entirely unashamed of how quickly his hand curls around himself beneath his tunic, how quickly it takes him to find release, thinking of rough hands and rougher words. It leaves him trembling and breathless, and with narrow-eyed determination, lying pliant and languid against the sheets of his bed, curtains swaying in the cool breeze.

Will considers, bending his body in gentle turns and arches, hands slipping over slick skin and taut muscle.

“Your boy," he murmurs, smiling, grinning, before biting his lip and exhaling. “I will surely make you remember it.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a trace of milk just in the corner of Will’s mouth, glistening bright and unattended. Hannibal does not reach to wipe it away, to feel his thumb press against the boy’s softened lips and move them deliciously out of shape, but merely finishes his own cup without fanfare, attention sharpening by the moment.
> 
> Will sets his heel against the edge of the chair, leg propped against the table, and rests his cheek on his knee. Hannibal knows without seeing how the thin fabric of his chiton has slipped down in the crook of his hip, how bare the boy hangs beneath the table just out of sight.
> 
> Shameless.

It is harder to drive Hannibal to distraction after two consecutive days of study are missed as they entertain company, and it makes Will all the more ruthless and determined in his attempts. 

He was not dragged again to be present, and he takes the time to enjoy late mornings and late evenings without bother. 

He visits his horse and finds her less and less skittish every day, now coming to his hand easily and allowing a brief session of intense petting before snorting softly, stomping her feet and returning to the field. At least now she knows Will’s whistle, to come when he makes the sound. He has yet to name her, has no idea what would suit such a tiny and silly thing.

He supposes that the horse’s name really is the least important of the things it needs.

It is the morning on the third day, then, that Hannibal does not find the boy in the corridor waiting for him - bleary-eyed and with a throbbing head from the wine as the man is - and decides it is too much effort for the morning to chastise him. Instead, he makes his way to the kitchen, determined to find something to cool the fire in his head, and finds Will there instead.

The boy is on his toes, trying for a pitcher that is just a hair out of his reach. Muscles in his legs taut with the motion, chiton skimming high against his pink thighs as he makes a soft sound and tries to push himself higher. It is such an innocent display, so normal, and Hannibal finds himself staring intently at the beautiful curve of the boy’s body before Will finally relents, turns, regards Hannibal with wide blue eyes.

“I was going to bring you milk,” he says softly, “but I can’t reach.”

Narrow-eyed against the burn of sun through the windows, Hannibal watches Will at length before approaching. He considers placing his hand against the small of the boy’s back as he reaches to bring down the empty pitcher. Considers leaving it there and bending the boy over the counter, tunic shoved up around his slender waist, and having him with abandon.

His head - and belly - heave at the thought and Hannibal does neither, leaving the pitcher on the counter for him and finding his way back to his chair. Murmured words to his slave, her eyes bright and attentive, before she inclines her head and pads softly off towards the kitchen.

He drops heavy into his seat, elbows against the table, and a hand pressed to his head simply to feel something slightly cool against his skin.

“Where have you been?” he asks, voice roughened deep from too much drink and too much shouting in wine-soaked enthusiasm. Hannibal clears his throat, training his eyes on Will’s skinny legs, and the fabric brushing across them. “How have you made use of your time?”

Will hums, remains leaning against the counter as he watches Hannibal’s eyes rest on him, brings a hand down to tug absently against the end of his tunic, curl it in his fist so it slides higher up his thigh before letting it go.

“I cared for the horses,” he says, and it’s true, he has found that the more practice he gets the easier the chore becomes to do daily. He knows the slight differences in each personality now, knows which of the horses needs a longer brush behind their ears and which kick when you start to touch their tails. “I read, so I could recite for you.” Will curls one foot behind the ankle of the other, a brief gesture, before walking to the table himself and sitting in the chair close to Hannibal, just the corner between them, one leg curled beneath himself, the other barely brushing the floor with his toe. He presses the tunic down against his skin and bites his lip, brows furrowed in concern. “Are you well?”

Every gesture, every movement is noticed, observed, stirs in Hannibal something that he presses down beneath the ache thudding dull and heavy inside his head. He parts his lips with his tongue and rubs his hand over his eyes before folding both hands together on the table, brow knit in scrutiny of the boy fidgeting at his side.

“I am unsteady,” he replies, as an honest replacement for far cruder ways to describe how he’s feeling. A game is afoot, he knows it, and bolsters his own defenses by turning his eyes away - from flashing blue eyes and a bitten lip, from lanky limbs and a too-short tunic - towards the pitcher instead. “You were going to get a cup of milk for me.”

Will grins, a bright and apparently genuine expression, before he stands and brushes past Hannibal to take up the pitcher. He leaves the room, seeking Hannibal’s slave to ask where to find the milk. She pours him some from another pitcher, eyes narrowed as Hannibal’s had been, in slight suspicion but she says nothing on the matter and Will leaves without a word beyond thanks.

Returning, he takes down two cups, arching and pulling up as he had been for the pitcher, and fills them both with milk, taking them back to set one in front of Hannibal and to take one for himself, curling up in his chair as he had been and taking a sip.

Suspicion intensifying, Hannibal regards his own milk with little interest beyond seeing how Will would take the suggestion. He forces himself to take a sip anyway, sucking the grassy, rich taste from his lips.

If a swallow can be described as excessive, Will's would qualify. Head tilted back, Hannibal watches his throat work. Slender fingers press against his lips, traces of milk shining white across them, and the boy's eyes dance in a silent laugh.

"How quickly the civilized join the barbarians when they are forced to live amongst them," Hannibal observes, and adds a snort of faint amusement. "Peacemaker, indeed."

He frames his cup with his fingers and leans nearer the boy, over the table. "How is it? Warm, still, from her udder? Do you taste the earth in it, made sweet for her kids? Now and then a hair is found in it," he murmurs, in exaggerated caution. "No matter. You could stand to grow some of your own."

Will merely draws his tongue over his top lip to lick it clean before smiling.

“I saw you did not die from it," he comments. In truth, the milk tastes odd to him even still, the warmth unusual, the sweetness not cloying as honeyed drinks are, not heavy as wine. It is a strange thing, yet he feels his stomach comfortably full with it.

Will sets the cup aside and draws his thumb absently against his bottom lip.

“What will you have me do today?” he asks, certain that at least today he will be spared the hated training with weapons, too heavy for him, too brutal to know what they could do and have done. He has found himself frustrated more that he is fascinated by the bow and arrow, frustrated that he seems too weak for more than a few hours of positions and motions.

He hates running the length of the field at Hannibal’s command, returning breathless and exhausted only to find the man smiling at him to do it again and several times more.

“We should be gentle,” he adds at last, watches the way the word stops Hannibal’s cup halfway from his mouth, watches as it narrows his eyes. “While you are unsteady.”

There is a trace of milk just in the corner of Will’s mouth, glistening bright and unattended. Hannibal does not reach to wipe it away, to feel his thumb press against the boy’s softened lips and move them deliciously out of shape, but merely finishes his own cup without fanfare, attention sharpening by the moment.

Will sets his heel against the edge of the chair, leg propped against the table, and rests his cheek on his knee. Hannibal knows without seeing how the thin fabric of his chiton has slipped down in the crook of his hip, how bare the boy hangs beneath the table just out of sight.

Shameless.

Wanton, even.

And altogether entirely too bewitching.

“And what gentle activities does the little peacemaker suggest?” ventures Hannibal with a cautious curiosity, in no small way about what is exposed now by Will’s posture, but equally about the strategies being laid against him, and what end they’ll bring.

Will hums softly, leans further over his knee and regards Hannibal with a soft expression.

“We could study,” he says, “You wished me to learn languages and histories of other nations. I want to learn.”

He lets his eyes slip from Hannibal as he brings his tongue out to gently lick his bottom lip into his mouth.

“You could take me to the Symposium,” he says softly, blinking to let his eyes slip back to Hannibal, expression coy, pleased.

Rumbling a low, displeased sound at the thought of it, Hannibal lifts his chin and watches as his plate is brought to him. A simple meal, fried bread and crumbled cheese and vegetable mash, that he still regards with mistrust.

“A thoughtful tactic,” Hannibal suggests, “to take advantage of the enemy when they are weakened. It won Marathon for Greece, but it will not win the Symposium for you. I am unsteady, but I am not so unaware as that.”

Tearing off a chunk of bread, he dips it into the mash and samples it, scrutinizing Will.

“You will train today,” he decides, hardly able to conceal his pleasure as he turns towards his food. “And I will observe.”

Will’s brows furrow and he frowns, accepting his own plate with a small smile of gratitude. He regards the offerings and is careful to crumb the cheese further to give himself an excuse to lick his fingers clean, eyes out of focus until he notices the scrutiny aimed at him. Then he simply smiles as he does it.

“I enjoy training with you.” Will says at length, “I cannot take the forms on my own, I cannot commit them to memory. You say they should move as an extension of myself but I don’t move in such ways, stretch so far, bend that deeply. The sword is as foreign to me as the horses you own are here.”

He lets his eyes linger on Hannibal a moment longer before reclining back in his chair and letting his knee swing loose to rest further against the table, sending him into a comfortable sprawl before his food.

Hannibal watches as Will spreads himself, intentionally tempting in an infuriating tease, the hem of his tunic caught between his fingers, idly tugging at it.

“You are a spoiled child,” Hannibal tells him. There is no rancor to his tone, a simple statement of fact. “Decadent and lazy. You will find your forms through practice - not through me, not through taking days off to lounge about and sigh. Practice, ceaseless, daily, hourly if you are lucky enough to have the time to spare. And that you _certainly_ do.”

A sudden ardent stride to his words, and a subtle, malicious undertone beneath, delighting in Will’s dismay in spite of his prior certainty.

“The sword is foreign because you treat it as such, and because you think yourself above it, rather than remember it as a tool that will someday save you, if you are blessed, though the possibility alone of such a thing makes me question the Gods,” rumbles Hannibal. “You memorize through practice. You improve through practice. And so, you will practice, and in your place, I will lay about and watch.”

Will's eyes narrow but he does not outwardly protest, instead just picking at his breakfast with more concentration than the activity warrants or deserves. He thinks with longing of the day they could have had, simply reading together and allowing each to relax, and how now, instead, Will is going to sweat in the field, or the flat packed earth of the small training circle Hannibal has made, while the older man watches.

Will takes up his cup to drink once more, a slow swallow as his thoughts wander, as he considers the possibility of taking advantage of the awful activity ahead and turning it to his own ends.

"Will you have me use the spear today?" Will asks, blinking himself back to the present and regarding Hannibal, "Or practice with the sword?"

"Perhaps both, to make up for a day lost without practice with either."

Will frowns, purses his lips before sliding his leg to the floor and leaning to dab more of the mash with a piece of bread. He knows his tunic has ridden up, makes no move to adjust it, just wriggles in his seat to slowly slide back further into it.

"May I start with the spear?" he asks, sucking clean the side of his thumb as he waits for his answer.

If he is to toil in practice today, he will do it gracefully. With delicate fingers stroking his instruments, eyes low and demure, lips parted to catch his breath as sweat slips down his back and plasters the fabric of his clothes against him.

In light of the boy’s curious new strategy, Hannibal’s own is roughly the defensive equivalent of hunkering behind a shield. But he’s not displeased by how readily responds to him, dismayed instead by how readily his own body responds to Will. Enough years - and willpower - behind him to suppress the appearance of arousal, he doesn’t bother to suppress how openly he considers Will, with his sprawling bare limbs and hooded eyes.

Nor does he bother to suppress how much he enjoys watching the boy heft up the dory that butt to tip stands nearly twice as tall as Will himself. Belly full and head more at ease than it was before, Hannibal settles into a comfortable crouch at the edge of the training circle.

“It’s not too big,” Hannibal interjects, before he can hear the usual complaint. “It’s the standard size for them. They are not meant for throwing, Will, it is not a javelin. It is long so that it provides its own counterbalance, as you bring it to your shoulder, step, and,” he hesitates, scarcely an instant but Will catches the pause, “thrust.”

Will bites his lip again, and allows his eyes to slowly follow the entire length of the thing in his hand. It's considering, calculating, and Will’s fingers splay and tighten where he holds it now, point to the ground just enough to dig into the dirt. 

Carefully he slides his palm up the weapon, curls his fingers and returns it down. A deliberately suggestive gesture before he repeats the motion, grasps and lifts the spear to his shoulder before Hannibal can voice his displeasure at the teasing, demand Will not waste his time.

He has found that despite his near-constant displeasure with the weapons, they are built to work with their own balance, just as Hannibal says. The sword is heavy but not overly cumbersome, the shield easy to control. And this -

"It's so hard," Will laughs, the pause significant, "to keep it balanced for a thrust. Should I bend my knees?"

Hannibal catches his lower lip between his teeth, holds it there as though in thought about the question itself, rather than an attempt to bite back the order that Will should, entirely, bend his knees and his back and himself over for Hannibal’s observance. He forces unpleasantries into his mind, in an attempt to stave off the furling desire that tugs at him when he battles with himself not to only imagine much better uses for those little hands than fondling a spear.

He clears his throat and pushes to stand, sandaled feet slapping softly against the packed earth.

“That is because ideally, when you thrust, there is a target that will receive it,” he intones. “It will not simply fall forward. But should you miss, you must know the weight of it, how to recover.”

Calloused fingers press firmly against the back of Will’s leg, just above his knee, to bring him lower, and are drawn away slowly, snaring lightly in the boy’s tunic before they are removed.

“Like so. The closer your body is to the ground, the more steadiness can be found in it.”

Will makes a sound, like a small whine, like a pained little keen, and forces himself to stand still in the painful position.

"I can't imagine carrying a shield as well,” he murmurs, holding his balance long enough to breathe before he extends his arm, steps forward, and thrusts the thing with a slight twist before him.

It's heavy in his unpracticed fingers, but Will finds himself returning to the starting position with more ease than he had before. It still takes him longer than it should, in a battle situation, still fumbling with the grip, the balance to adjust it, before turning to look at Hannibal, at his side but a little behind, for the nod to try again.

And again.

And again.

Until Will’s muscles burn, his arm numb with it, his legs worse from the pain, until he can feel sweat just beneath the line of his hair, against his palm, down his back...

The spear sounds hollow when it falls to the ground, Will’s hand and knees shaking as he bends to retrieve it, fingers fumbling not to slip before he finally grips it properly and unfurls back to standing. In a quick motion, he flicks his damp hair from his face and licks the sweat from the corner of his mouth.

Indignant, lovely thing.

Hannibal walks a slow circle around the boy, shining with sweat and caked with dirt, hair hanging into his eyes in lank twists and breath still heaving softly. His weariness is a virtue, Hannibal knows, the only way that Will is ever going to learn a weapon, an art, _discipline_.

He wears it beautifully.

Hannibal presses a hand to the small of Will’s back, the other to his shoulder, and adjusts his posture to stand taller for a moment, supported by Hannibal’s touch.

“Do not force it,” the man murmurs, close against Will’s ear. He grasps Will’s slender wrist and brings the spear to shoulder-height again, ignoring - but certainly _feeling_ the whimper this earns him. “Relax. Breathe. Allow the spear to guide itself forward beneath its own weight. There is no victory in fighting battles that need not be fought.”

Wrapping his other hand around Will’s hip, he stands pressed against him and draws in a long breath, to let the scent of grass and sweat and soil and horses play across his tongue.

"Again,” he commands softly. Will swallows, forcing his arm to stop shaking so much, and allowing gravity to take the spear where it needs to go before returning to the starting position, feeling Hannibal steady behind him.

"Again."

Will can feel Hannibal’s breath against his neck, cooling the sweat there, and smiles. A small victory for the pain his entire body is in, to have him press so close because he can do nothing else.

More and more Will practices, until the spear falls again and, shaking, Will falls with it to all fours. His legs feel like water, his arm in agony, and Will ducks his head on harsh breaths as he remains as he fell, the spear by his hand, though he does not lift it.

The wind catches warm but for where it finds the sweat on their skin and cools it, rustling the leaves of the olive trees that line the land, sweet salt air from the ocean. Hannibal turns his attention that way, a habitual glance to scan the horizon, and lets his attention drift back towards the stables, the house - quiet, all - and finally back the boy panting at his feet.

A faint smile curls Hannibal’s lips and he ducks to wrap an arm around Will’s middle. Easily, the boy is lifted back to his feet, but the support is not taken from him when Hannibal can feel the little tremors in his legs.

Nosing against Will’s temple, Hannibal’s smile widens a little. “Shall we be gentle, then? When you are so unsteady?”

A soft sound, almost pained, and Will feels his weight drop a little before he forces himself to stand, the motion a delightful friction against Hannibal. 

"It's such a long weapon," Will murmurs, lip between his teeth again before he releases it on a breath, "so hard... hard to hold and control. I can't take much more, today, everything hurts."

A laugh, soft, deliberate, and Will hums, letting his eyes close and his head drop back against Hannibal’s chest.

"Please be gentle, just for a while." He sighs, "Have mercy on me."

Hannibal considers, a low rumble in his chest, and softly smooths Will’s hair back from his face, pressing him closer against his body. A stirring of movement against the boy’s back, the barest shift of hips that Hannibal can restrain himself to with this new nearness, so fiercely resisted today.

His hand large enough to surround Will’s, he takes it and brings it back to rest against his thigh, just to feel the boy’s fingers curl against it, to feel them tug at the length of fabric scarcely now concealing his arousal.

“Is it too much for you?” asks the man, mouth brushing Will’s throat as he speaks, curled around him. “Too substantial for your delicate hands, perhaps, but you must try.”

A pause, and a base amusement.

“Perhaps you should use two.”

Will feels the blush spill across his nose, over his cheeks, and lets his lip go from between his teeth with a sigh. His fingers curl once more, gentle brush of nails against fabric and skin beneath it. He can feel how hard Hannibal is for him, from merely watching, just imagining exactly what Will had wanted him to.

He considers the heat of the day, the exhaustion in his limbs, the frantic hammering of his heart as Hannibal breathes against him.

Will swallows, the motion prominent against his wet skin, draws his hand up a little before sliding it back to where Hannibal had set it. Cautiously, deliberately, Will brings his other hand back as well, fingers flexing in uncertainty that is far from fully faked, before finally brushing over the fabric against Hannibal's other thigh.

"It is not a two-handed weapon." Will replies, "I would lose my balance, the thrust would veer... I wouldn't hit a target, I would become one."

There is a moment wherein the game is forgotten, as Hannibal blinks his surprise as the boy’s observation. He is entirely correct, and the knowledge entirely his own, not something that Hannibal had explained in any such direct terms.

Profoundly pleased, he tightens his arm around Will’s waist, and with a languid smile, reminds himself that it isn’t spears they speak of now.

“As much a part of any battle as being able to strike well,” Hannibal murmurs, “is knowing how to _take_ well.”

The hand that held Will’s to his leg skirts instead to the boy’s thigh, up the back of it, fingertips teasing the curve where his ass meets his leg, fabric draped across his wrist.

“You must know how - when you are come against - to continue your movement forward,” purrs the man, his mouth tucked into the lovely arch of Will’s neck, tilting his head aside as Hannibal pushes slightly forward, to unbalance the boy and keep him snared tight.

Will makes another sound, nearly stumbles as he’s unbalanced, fingers curling hard against where they rest as Hannibal presses him close, splays his fingers over Will’s soft skin, so long they comfortably grasp one cheek and reach the other, the tips tickling the skin there.

He shivers, the tremors from his legs wracking his entire body now, soft motions against Hannibal that turn to a steady slow ebb and pull of undulations. 

"I would fear an approach," Will whispers. "I would retreat."

"I will teach you to hold your ground," Hannibal murmurs, lips drawn back to reveal his teeth in a smile. "Legs apart and knees bent. A balance you will learn well, assume quickly."

Will laughs, a nervous little noise and slips his fingers beneath the hem of the cotton covering Hannibal.

"Will you be patient with me?"

Will is breathless, now, almost lost in his own game, almost prepared to cede victory in it because of how good it feels to have Hannibal so close again.

Nearly bending the boy in half beneath his weight, Hannibal tilts a brush of lips against the back of Will’s neck, not yet a kiss, but enough to feel the salty sweat and clinging dust against his mouth as he speaks in a rough murmur.

“As patient as you require,” agrees Hannibal readily, fingers tickling up the cleft of Will’s ass, not yet parting him but teasing still. A jut of his hips that would spill the boy to the ground if not for the arm around his waist, when Hannibal adds, “And as forceful as I must be, to ensure the lessons are felt.”

Thin wool made heavy with sweat catches on Hannibal’s hand as he brings it up from Will’s belly to his chest, higher still to cup beneath his jaw and arch his body further, bend his back beneath Hannibal’s chest.

“There will be no retreat. No withdrawal, no cessation until victory is won.”

Will moans, a low, trembling sound, and shivers as he’s nearly unclothed here, Hannibal's words eager and dark, his own hips slowly rocking forward against Will in a way Will cannot deny feels very, very good.

"Tell me why," Hannibal growls softly.

Will swallows, "Because I am your boy,"

"Yes."

"A reflection of you in all I do... in all my learning and practice and patience."

"Yes," a hiss now, and Will’s shaking increases. It feels good. It feels so undeniably good.

"Yours, Hannibal, your boy." He moans, "Your boy... cannot stand idle. Your boy cannot allow distraction in the field, in his studies..." The coy tone takes over the whimpering one, so pleased with himself Will could laugh for it. He digs his nails into Hannibal’s thigh to create a pleasing sting before letting go, extricating himself from Hannibal's loosened grip and adjusting his clothes before turning to face his mentor.

"Your boy, Hannibal,” he repeats, eyes wide and bright and expression utterly wicked. He pushes up onto his toes, close enough to feel Hannibal's lips there, but he does not kiss him.

"Remember it." Will grins, bites his lip and steps back. One step, another, to pick up the spear and turn away.

"I have recitations to memorize," he calls over his shoulder. "Stalls to muck this evening. I simply cannot afford the distraction."

Hannibal remains as he is for a moment more, aching hard where his tunic drapes across his cock, finally straightening to watch Will waltz away from him. His eyes narrow, a fraught sensation of displeasure and desire, tempted by the pursuit of him. Suddenly predatory with lust, with want, to feel those skinny legs shake for him again, Hannibal considers closing the distance, taking Will to the ground and having him right in the paddock until both are filthy.

He resists, and smooths his garment as best he can to restore some semblance of civility to himself after the boy so summarily stripped it from him. With a sigh, Hannibal reminds himself that three years is a very long time, and certainly enough to tame a stubborn colt.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He watches Will, pale with alarm, jerking in quick adjustments with every shift of weight from the creature beneath him, fingers pressing tight against his withers. After a few moments, neither ease, the horse’s nerves heightened by the tension above him, the boy’s by the horse beneath.
> 
> Hannibal hums, and with hands planted securely, brings himself up behind Will, to slip a leg over the horse’s hindquarters and settle in comfortably behind him.
> 
> “Better?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early posting for our darling [KinneyKid](http://kinneykid.tumblr.com) by way of our [$10 November Commissions special](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/post/101799625455/10-per-chapter-is-alive-and-kicking) \- thank you as ever for your amazing support, and we hope you enjoy!!

The best Will can do - if he is absolutely honest - is sit on the horse once he is upon it. If the horse walks, he can hold himself against it without falling. If it decides to lift its feet, Will usually finds himself grabbing against its mane and holding for his life. If the horse trots, Will watches it grow smaller in the distance, nursing a bruised thigh where he fell.

The fact that Hannibal chooses one of his hunting horses, one of the largest, even by the standards of the stubby little breed he has here, makes Will wonder if this is not retribution for his own teasing, his own games as the last week had progressed.

They have fallen, now, thankfully, into an easy coexistence. They share the house without issue, every morning Hannibal greets Will with a touch to his thigh and a kiss, and every morning Will feels his cheeks flood with color at the delightfully pleasing sensation. He does not touch in turn, allows Hannibal his courtship of him, and turns into the soft kisses laid against his cheeks or temples if the general is feeling affectionate that morning.

After, it is always the same. Training with the sword or spear, all Will’s complaints ignored, only his whimpers heeded, when genuine, to stop. Study in the evenings. Some nights Will tends to the horses, other nights Hannibal himself does.

Will can brush them faster, now, and not just their coats but manes and tails also. Hannibal had taught him only recently how to pick their hooves, but Will has found that only one horse is willing to lift her legs for Will to practice. And it is not his filly.

Her, he can see nuzzling among the clover again, tiny tail twitching and legs steadier. She comes to his hand now, at a whistle. But does not stay.

Will had noticed Hannibal observing him with her, sometimes caught a brief look of approval at Will’s slow attempts to tame the creature to his hand - as wild as he in some regards, as gentle in others.

Now, Will regards the large horse before him and the saddle in his hands and chews his lip.

“I’m unsure I can… reach,” he says, blue eyes darting to Hannibal quickly, standing at his side.

“He’s hardly taller than you are,” snorts Hannibal, brow raised.

“But he is taller than I am,” the boy reiterates, and Hannibal draws a breath, sighing slowly as he steps a little closer. A little closer than necessary, perhaps. Certainly closer than necessary, as Will is nearly pinned between Hannibal’s body and the horse, and gentle hands slip down his arms to snare the saddle from him, and heave it onto the horse’s back.

Hannibal lingers there a moment more, a seemingly unintentional brush of fingers against his waist before he steps back enough to let Will move again.

“I didn’t learn on a saddle,” he notes. “I do not prefer them even now. You can’t feel the horse beneath you - they can’t feel you. The muscles of your legs, your balance. They feel only the weight of the saddle, and it makes the rider complacent, to have a seat beneath them.”

Before Will can protest, Hannibal steps forward again - another rough jostle of his body against the boy’s back - and he removes the saddle, dropping it aside with a puff of dust from the straw beneath their feet.

“Now we’ll see how you do. A blanket, perhaps, if you begin to chafe, but no more than that.”

Will turns to him, bewildered, eyes wide in genuine concern before he directs them away. He can feel the flush gather against his cheeks and his jaw works before he can speak.

“Please let me have the saddle.” he asks, eyes up again despite his chin being ducked in something that could pass for shyness.

“I can barely balance on a horse with one. Please don’t make me prove it to you. Let me learn with the saddle like others.”

The mild demand delights Hannibal, eyes crinkling in pleasure as he tucks the side of his fingers beneath Will’s chin and lifts it.

“But you are not like others,” Hannibal murmurs. “You are mine.”

Will parts his lips, eyes widening enormously, and Hannibal snares him lightly around the waist, arms beneath his legs, to lift him with a grunt up onto the horse who snorts in only a mild protest.

“A saddle is a crutch for the inexperienced and afraid,” states Hannibal. “You will find your balance better without relying on it. Settle just over his backbone there, and do not tighten your legs or he’ll begin to move before you’re ready.”

He watches Will, pale with alarm, jerking in quick adjustments with every shift of weight from the creature beneath him, fingers pressing tight against his withers. After a few moments, neither ease, the horse’s nerves heightened by the tension above him, the boy’s by the horse beneath.

Hannibal hums, and with hands planted securely, brings himself up behind Will, to slip a leg over the horse’s hindquarters and settle in comfortably behind him.

“Better?”

“Would be much better if I could get off the horse and just watch you ride,” Will tells him, still gripping the horse hard enough to make it shift its weight. “I can just… I am happy mucking stalls. I can care for them. You can ride them.”

Will feels Hannibal laugh, bring his hands down to settle against Will’s thighs to gently rub there, a soothing gesture that stays entirely innocent, above the hem of his tunic, never once slipping beneath. It does help to get Will to sit not quite as rigidly and the horse seems to settle.

“I could just ride in a cart,” he offers, another option as amusing as the first, for a boy here to learn the art of war. “I can ride in a cart and read to them as they walk. They calm enough when I do it in the mornings.”

A brow lifts, and though Will doesn’t see it, he can certainly hear it in the man’s voice. “You read to the horses?”

Just as clearly, Hannibal needs not see the blush on Will’s cheeks to know it’s there.

“Recite,” corrects Will. “When I’m brushing them.”

“Bringing peace to horses as well, then,” Hannibal responds, amused. He is at his most comfortable like this, his aggressions - whether for good or ill - eased into a near serenity whenever he is near the animals. “Capable as you are in caring for them, so you will be in moving with them.”

The reins settled gently in his hands - an acquiescence, this, when Will has seen him astride the creatures without even that - and his hands then resting over Will’s thighs, Hannibal eases forward with his body and the horse clops readily forward, snorting exuberantly.

“Impatient,” Hannibal murmurs, as much to himself as to the boy.

Will sits still and straight as a statue on the animal as it moves, determined to keep his eyes ahead and his entire strength curled in fingers around the horse’s mane. When he had ridden with Hannibal there had been a saddle, and for Will a blanket to sit before it. He had felt secure in the hands of an able rider but here, even at a walking pace, he feels as if every rocking motion of the creature will make him topple.

“Perhaps I should seat you astride the horse when I take you through lessons you do not wish to learn. I have never seen you so concentrated,” Hannibal murmurs, entirely too amused by Will’s sudden lack of confidence and willful disobedience.

Will makes a sound of infinite displeasure and nearly falls off the horse when his thighs squeeze around the horse and for a few paces he takes his cue to speed up. Hannibal brings him back to a walk with a gentle tug of the reins before returning one hand to Will’s thigh to stroke against his skin.

“If you don’t relax you will make the horse nervous.”

“I can be a foot soldier,” Will mutters.

“You can be many things,” agrees Hannibal amicably. “And you will. A skilled horseman is one of those things. There is something to be said for fighting while mounted, rather than in the muck below.”

Hardly holding the reins, Hannibal splays his fingers across Will’s legs, pressing his palms to the linen that slips rhythmically against his skin. Sounds of recognition - loud whinnies, with an eager tossing of his head - are called out to the rest of the herd as Hannibal steers him away and towards the path that meanders through field and grove, down gentle hills and through the olive trees, towards the beach beneath the cliffs near the house.

Tall grasses stroke along their bare legs, the pace steady and certain, despite the occasional snort of annoyance from the horse.

“He is used to far more agitation than this,” Hannibal muses. “Pounding down the soil behind hare and fox and deer. You would not think him a hunting horse to look at him, but tell him that and he would take it as motivation to prove you wrong.”

A slap, gently, to Will’s hands gripping tight in the horse’s mane.

“You are annoying him. Rest your hands against his neck if you must cling to something.”

Will sighs, very carefully extricates one hand then the other to settle against the horse. He is slowly growing used to the rhythm of the animal beneath him, but finds himself leaning back against Hannibal for support more than he does allowing his body to adjust and find it himself.

Before them, the beach unfurls, white sands and ocean so bright it makes Will squint, smiling in pleasure. Here, he wants to be. Against the soft waves and sand thin as dust. Here he can swim, he can float and not feel a single thing but his own heart beat.

“How often will you make me ride?” he asks after a while, palms flat against the horse to avoid curling his hands into painful fists against him.

“Every day we have the time,” Hannibal responds calmly, head back and arms out at his sides just letting the horse carry him. Will ventures a turn to look and nearly unsettles them both by squeezing hard around the horse’s middle.

“Gods, can’t he just… listen to verbal commands?” Will laughs nervously. “I can’t not move when I’m here, and every time I do he takes it as a cue to run.”

As they shift suddenly forward, onto the steeper path that winds down the hill towards the beach, Hannibal slips his arm around Will’s waist to catch him from being jutted forward, throwing his weight back, in compensation. It isn’t entirely the lesson Hannibal intended to teach - to let the boy find his weight on the sure-footed animal digging his hooves down the path, but it isn’t an uncomfortable one either.

“They speak their own language, not ours, and most of it is spoken between their bodies. You are learning how to speak with them,” says Hannibal, shifting Will a little closer back against him. “What good are verbal commands when you must remain silent? When you are surrounded by voices? What good are reins,” he asks, dropping them to settle against the horse’s neck, “when you have sword and shield in your hands instead?”

Chin resting comfortably on Will’s shoulder, he runs his free hand down the outside of Will’s thigh and presses it softly inward, humming pleased as his horse responds by angling his body in the opposite direction.

“You see? Once they know your weight, your natural adjustments, they will know when you change them deliberately. But if you are always tight, made taut with fear, then everything is urgent. It is as though you are shouting at them, without saying a word.”

Will laughs, a breathless thing and bites his lip, forcing himself to relax as they continue down the beach. Hannibal's hand lingers before it slowly shifts higher up Will’s thigh and he tenses again.

"Breathe, Will," Hannibal murmurs, eyes closed and head back, still, when Will looks, and a smile on his face that Will feels darken his blush. He breathes, turns back and after a few more moments, closes his eyes as well.

Surprisingly he finds that the steady rhythm the horse keeps is almost like the tug and pull of the ocean. Up and down and side to side, gentle, over and over. Will allows his breathing to even out to match the pace and feels Hannibal's hum more than hears it before those rough fingers, that Will has been dreaming of some nights alone in his bed, embarrassingly hard and aching, slide further still beneath his tunic.

“Guide him towards the sand,” Hannibal tells Will, helping the boy stay balanced with the symmetry of his own weight, as the horse ambles from the path towards the grasses further up the shore.

A blink, distracted until those words from the task at hand by the hand at task, curling softly against the inside of his thigh, and Will huffs a breath, eyes narrowing in focus. He turns his leg slightly inward, and as the horse begins to turn squeezes his other to keep himself from slipping, which altogether brings the stallion into a happy canter towards the sand.

The sound Will makes is choked and piteous, reins slipped too far forward for him to grasp with Hannibal’s arm around him. The man himself merely laughs, adjusting his posture in increments to the loping gait, careful to keep Will held although the boy seems determined to fall from how tense he becomes.

“Lean back, Will!” comes the light call over his shoulder, the wind rushing against their ears, and Hannibal digs his hips lower against the horse, against Will, arching over the horse’s hindquarters to slow them to a trot, and a walk again, albeit with a surly snort.

“If nothing else I teach you sticks, stay loose when you are bound to fall,” laughs Hannibal. “It will save you from breaking bones, at least.” His hand is spread entirely against Will’s leg now, to feel the tremor of his thighs, hidden to the wrist beneath his chiton.

"Why are you so frightened of him?" Hannibal asks, warm words against Will’s damp hair, wet from the panic and adrenaline of his expected and unwanted canter.

"This animal holds my life, when I ride him," Will grits out, releasing a low, long breath when Hannibal squeezes his thigh and releases it. "He will crush me if I fall and he on top of me. He will trample me if he stays standing."

"And he will save your life if you take him to battle," Hannibal counters. "Keep you warm when you camp under the stars. The creature you so fear will know your mind and you his. It is a deep connection." Hannibal bares Will further. "Intimate."

Will bites his lip, shivers, and releases it as Hannibal gets him to turn the horse again. Carefully, Will tries again, thighs tightening and trembling, but Hannibal's hand keeping one from pushing the horse to a run, soft fingers caressing the curve of Will’s groin.

"Better."

Will sighs, pleased with the praise, and relaxes his thighs further, parting them for Hannibal's seeking hand as he gives the man his weight. 

A slight tilt of Hannibal’s head brings their cheeks into contact before he turns his mouth down against Will’s shoulder, pressing a lingering kiss against the drape of fabric that overlays it.

“Is this what it takes?” he asks, amused. “You see how your legs settle easy over him? How your body moves, a rhythm, in time with his own.” Both hands press to Will’s thighs now, thumbs settled into the lovely bend where they meet his hips.

“You are like them,” observes Hannibal. “Touch calms you. Reassures. Were I to snare you against me, squeeze you, startle you with sudden movements you would tense in response, perhaps struggle against it. But when I am gentle,” he continues, stroking with his thumb just enough to feel the denser thatch of hair between the boy’s legs, “you are gentled by it in turn.”

With a cluck of his tongue, the horse slows to a stop, huffing a breath down against the sand and shifting his haunches to one side. Hannibal follows the movement and brings his leg around, to drop to the beach beside the horse.

“Try it now without me,” Hannibal murmurs, attention distracted towards the sea that rustles softly against the shore, and further out still.

Will makes a sound, more a hum of consideration than fear but he is far from happy to be on the horse alone. He adjusts his tunic to cover himself again, sits in such a way as to have his thighs barely touch the horse at all, but finds the position is impossible to hold and resigns himself to his fate.

At least if he falls, he will fall in the sand.

Gently, and adds pressure for the horse to move, thankfully not fast but he goes, head ducked and feet kicking up sand in gentle puffs before him. Will remembers the way Hannibal had guided him and forces his body to relax, forces himself to time his breathing to the waves.

At this pace, Will can allow his body to adjust to the horse’s rhythm, feeling his hips shift side to side as the horse’s do. He doesn't want to imagine what would happen at a higher speed, but there is something wise in Hannibal’s assurances. He thinks of his own responses to touch. And carefully, he shifts his weight, adds enough to have the horse turn. Further than he needs, facing the water now, but Will laughs in delight at his success.

“Beautiful,” says Hannibal, and truly, they are. The boy with his curls tossed wild by the wind, pale limbs pressed against the dark creature beneath him, and the sound of his laugh sings through Hannibal with such intensity that he cannot help but smile. “Give him a pat on the neck - reassure him that what he did was right.”

Will strokes the horse’s shoulder, slender fingers pressed into the shaggy coat, and Hannibal trudges through the sand a little further away from them, away from the grasses that the mount has been eyeing.

“This way now,” he tells the boy. “Stay loose. Align your breath with his and your body will follow in kind.”

It takes little more than the thought of a squeeze before the horse redirects, and plods patiently towards Hannibal, and he watches Will’s hips shift with the lazy stride in effortless countertime. A slight misstep falls off pace but Will merely steadies himself again and breathes another laugh of relief as he does.

“No need for saddles,” Hannibal smiles towards Will as they approach, all but bursting with pride to see Will finally begin to ease into a calm control. “Clever boy. You will make a confident rider in no time.”

He rubs brisky against Will’s leg when they sidle up close to him, his other hand on the horse’s neck to keep him still.

“Have you learned her name yet? Your little filly,” he asks.

Will gently runs a hand over the horse’s neck and shakes his head. He had tried to name her, something graceful and powerful, honoring a goddess or an element to which they associate. But the filly would have none of it, answering only to a whistle for the moment, refusing Will’s Greek names.

"She hasn't told me,” he admits, smiling at Hannibal, realizing he has started to refer to the horses as Hannibal does, as people, not beasts of burden.

He lets his eyes hover over the sea as Hannibal's had, wondering what the man sees there, so far out, what he thinks of. He wonders, sometimes, why he had stayed in Greece but knows it would be exceptionally rude to ask.

"Perhaps I don’t know the word, yet, to describe her."

Hannibal’s eyes narrow in approval, and he gives Will’s leg a firm squeeze.

“Patience, then, as in all things,” he murmurs, looking up towards the boy who peers down at him. Reaching, Hannibal sweeps Will’s hair behind his ear, and lets his fingers drift down the curve of his cheek before stepping away again.

They work this way for much of the afternoon, forgoing other lessons in favor of it, until Will can pursue Hannibal’s movements through the sand at a quick walk. He jogs in circles, changing direction for Will to follow, until he takes a turn too quickly and the horse surges forward into a burst of canter - he himself impatient with the game - and Hannibal skids to a stop as Will, with a strangled yelp, slips into the sand.

Relieved of his burden, Hannibal’s horse wanders finally off towards the grass long-desired, and Hannibal shuffles through the sand to reach where Will lies breathless on the ground. He knows from a glance the boy isn’t hurt, despite the ashen pallor of his cheeks, but crouches down beside him anyway.

Will looks at him, eyes wide and lips parted, before he starts to laugh, a young and genuine sound, loud and happy on the beach as he brings his hands up to press to his face, hiding his smile, trying to stifle the sound.

In truth he is not at all hurt. Startled and cool with adrenaline but unhurt. After a while, Will sits up and watches Hannibal so close, so patient with him, here, where such a lesson must be a chore for him, so used to riding at the speed the horse prefers.

Will bites his lip and blinks.

"I wish I had his spirit,” he admits, "and his speed."

Hannibal skims a hand through the sand, grasping it and letting it slip back through again. Something to do that isn’t reach for Will again, some place to put his hands that isn’t beneath the boy’s tunic or against his face or pushed through his hair.

He wants to, badly, but resists with a hum.

“You do,” answers Hannibal after a moment. “And you will.” He does, finally, nudge his knuckles against Will’s skinny leg, tipping it over. “You and your little filly both are uncertain, wild and fitful, but you will find your strength, as will she.”

Pushing off his own legs he stands, dusting the sand from his tunic to regard the boy now seated placidly at his feet.

“I am very lucky. I have been around horses my entire life. On them since birth, I suppose, riding my own since I could walk. They are as much my family as my own blood.”

Will grins, imagining - or trying to imagine - a much younger Hannibal on a horse, learning to control it as Will is now. Will thinks of how this will become a routine, not only caring for the creatures but riding them too, slowly working up the practice and courage until his little horse grew steadier legs.

Will watches this horse, now, happily pick away at the grass he had been so denied with the boring walks over and over the sand. He watches Hannibal above him, imposing by size alone, without intimidating Will with his posture. He swallows, thinks of the way Hannibal had touched him, and how much Will wants him to do it again.

And how stubborn they both are, that Hannibal will not make him and Will will not go to him.

He sets his arms behind him to balance and curls his legs beneath him.

"Did you grow up by the sea?" He asks.

Brows raised, Hannibal doesn’t bother to shield his mild surprise at the question. The boy has never asked about him so personally as that, never seemed to care enough about his otherness, beyond that he is _other_.

“No,” says Hannibal. “We lived far from it. Now and then we would ride further north to trade, should we have need of going so far, and so I had seen it, but never been so near as this.” He glances over his shoulder to the peaceful blue gliding across the sand, the sea nearly still and glinting golden beneath a sun unobscured by clouds.

“It was different than your seas,” he recalls. “You knew by looking how bitterly cold it would be, rough rocks carved out of cliffsides marking the shore.” A pause, eyes distant, and a breath of laughter through his nose. “In truth I was terrified the first time I lay eyes on it. A lake without end, violent and frigid.”

He hesitates a moment, glancing between boy and horse, sea and trail, and decides against taking their leave just yet, instead dropping down to sit comfortably in the warm sand beside Will.

“Do you swim?” he asks. “You must know, growing up here.”

Will grins, surprised by his own boldness and happy the question was answered. He ducks his head as Hannibal sits close, forces himself not to move to bring the man closer.

"I know how,” he says. "It's incredible, letting the sea carry you. It's the closest I think man can get to flight. You are entirely weightless in that sea."

He bites his lip and turns to Hannibal properly.

"The places you speak of are like stories. Places I cannot imagine. And I had never thought that Greece, to you, would feel just as foreign and mystical."

It's exhilarating speaking with Hannibal this way, open, honest, no barriers between them here, for a moment longer. For brief time, Hannibal sits as his friend, not his master, and Will wonders if it impossible for him to be both.

"Will you teach me more of your land?" he asks. 

A mischievous crinkle gathers in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes as he leans back on his hands, attention distant across the water.

“Will you teach me how to swim?”

It’s an honest question, and not without a twinge of embarrassment to it in asking, before he explains, “I have never understood the need for it, nor desired it, in truth. The lakes were not our territory to broach, the rivers too swift, the seas violent and far away. I imagine had I grown up near waters such as this, perhaps the temptation may have come to me.”

He draws his legs up, heels planted into the sand, and loops his arms over them. In truth, he wants nothing more than to share his customs, his history, with this boy. No wife will be granted him, no children by proxy, and the thought of carrying so much in him with no means to share it is far more frightening than any sea.

There are few enough of his tribe left now as it is, and with him will die more memories than have already been wiped from the world.

“I will teach you,” he promises Will softly. “Anything of it you wish to know.”

Will watches him, feels his smile slowly fade, watching Hannibal close in a little, for just a moment. He remembers the way Hannibal had mentioned other histories, strategies, languages, and how Will had never found the thought daunting to learn them. He wanted to. He wants to.

Carefully, he shifts to kneel in the sand and leans in to press his lips to Hannibal's cheek.

"I wish to know all of it,” he says softly, honestly, before grinning and pushing himself to stand.

"And it is only fair that if you made me suffer on the horse I make you suffer in the water." His words are in jest, smile too warm to bring forth any malice within. Gently, he holds out his hand, though Hannibal would not need to take it to lever himself up.

He takes the boy’s hand and pushes himself up to stand, turning their palms together so that their fingers entwine. A squeeze, warm, and Hannibal brushes a kiss across the boy’s forehead before releasing him.

A sigh, long and burdened, even as a profound contentment warms in his belly.

“Show me, then, peacemaker,” he tells Will, rueful, taking his time to follow the boy as he trots towards the water, shedding his clothing behind himself and disappearing bare into the cerulean sea.

Will swims as skillfully as Hannibal rides, as effortless as if he was born in water, turning agile and fast beneath the gentle undulations of waves, laughing as he emerges farther out and throws his hair back glittering from his face.

He is beautiful, and it tugs in Hannibal’s heart so intensely he wonders if it has stopped entirely.

But he follows, sandals left behind, so far as to stand to his thighs in the water - no further than that, today - and watches the boy frolic contentedly instead. It is trying enough to balance this way, even with his feet firmly planted in the sand, and a rougher wave shoves hard enough against his legs to nearly send him spilling, but for a quick turn to catch himself on his hands and drag himself laughing out of the water again.

They stay until the sun has rested itself against the horizon, and decided that they will try again soon. Make a day of it, perhaps, once a week - to ride and to swim, and for both to strive against that which they have feared.

Hannibal scoops the wet boy, tunic clinging soaked to his skin, up onto the horse to return home. He sleeps against Hannibal’s chest, balanced by the arm around his waist, and Hannibal does not wake him upon returning but simply carries Will to his bed, and brushes his fingers against his hair before leaving him to rest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal draws his attention back from where it sought, across the sea, to the child making sounds at him. It takes him a moment more to hear the words. To process them.
> 
> And only a moment more than that to slap the boy across his cruel mouth. Will staggers, eyes wide, and Hannibal’s lips curl in a snarl over clenched teeth.
> 
> “Get up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra-special early posting for Sarah, who requested a bit more Grecian goodness via [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/post/101799625455/10-per-chapter-is-alive-and-kicking) \- thank you for your support, lovely, and we sincerely hope you enjoy the chapter!!

Hannibal is late.

He hardly lets Will out of his sight when it’s time for training, brimming with enthusiasm to get a weapon in the boy’s hands again, to hone his skills and his body in tandem. Studies are less strenuous affairs - Will’s strength already, and something for which Hannibal has little use at this point in his life - but outside, in the training circle, there are days the man can hardly restrain himself from pushing Will forward into it, his own equipment in hand.

They work together, sometimes, a light, slow sort of sparring to give Will a feel for contact against a shield, a target to aim for. Other times it is a ceaseless repetition of movements until the boy is whimpering - a different sound than his whine, which goes ignored - in exhaustion.

But over breakfast, a messenger arrived, the parchment brought to Hannibal along with his food, and he sent Will out before the boy had even touched his plate.

And now the sun pulls higher into the sky, the only relief from it in the brisk breeze that tugs at Will’s chiton, and he sits in the circle with his sword across his legs, hands planted in the dirt behind him, watching as Hannibal’s familiar form makes its way up from the house.

He bounces the sword against his knees, chews his lip. Stomach empty and growling with it and irritation on top of that. Will doesn’t stand for a long time, until Hannibal is almost upon him, and even then he drags himself up reluctantly, sword hanging loose in his fingers.

"I expect the meal was pleasant?" Will asks, terse and displeased. "One to be savored and enjoyed alone. Long enough for the sun to beat against the earth and save us the more merciful morning cool." He swings his sword in a childish way, as though swatting a stone from the ground and returns his eyes to Hannibal as the other says nothing, expression drawn and almost worried, if Will cared enough to look. He does not. It hardly matters to him why. "Is fighting on an empty stomach supposed to make me vicious and keener?" he ventures, setting his sword into the soil where it balances. "Barbaric indeed. I thought we had moved to Greek civilities."

Hannibal draws his attention back from where it sought, across the sea, to the child making sounds at him. It takes him a moment more to hear the words. To process them.

And only a moment more than that to slap the boy across his cruel mouth. Will staggers, eyes wide, and Hannibal’s lips curl in a snarl over clenched teeth.

“Get up.” Will sucks in a breath and it hardly passes his lips before Hannibal steps towards him, somehow drawing himself bigger, taller over the boy. “Your sword is not a shovel. Pick it up.”

A hesitation, pale hand against his red cheek, eyes wide and blue and shocked, directed at Hannibal, trying to meet his gaze and hold it. He has never struck him before. Never once in the months Will had been here, never once for his petulance or stupidity. A denial of a meal, longer chores and less sleep but never this.

"I'm sorry -"

"Pick up your sword."

Will does, without further hesitation, not wanting to test the man's patience more.

“Where is your grip?”

“I -”

“Is it a stick? Are you playing at hoops?”

“I’ve only picked it up!”

The words are spat quickly, eyes wide, and Hannibal catches him across the face again - not as hard, but enough to startle a sound from him. His hand doesn’t pass, it lingers, and he snares Will’s jaw in his hand to force the boy’s eyes to him.

“On the field, with soldiers bearing down upon you, is that how you pick it up? Answer me. You lift it unhurried and thoughtless?” He shakes Will’s face free and forces himself to step back one stride, two.

“Put it down,” he intones. “And pick it up again correctly, lest I think these months have been for naught and I send you home in shame to your father.”

Eyes wide, Will obeys, setting the sword to the ground before going to retrieve it, taking it up as Hannibal had taught him, supporting it with his weaker hand as Hannibal had allowed the last few weeks until Will’s strength develops. He can feel the prickling of tears behind his eyes and hopes he can hold them back. He has never seen Hannibal so angry, so determined to play the antagonist when his patience usually never wavers. Despite Will’s attempts to make it, despite his occasional successes.

“Please don’t,” he asks. He has had letters from his father, asking him if he is well, asking him how he is learning and what he excels at. From his letters, Will can tell Hannibal had never followed through on his threat of the first few weeks. Will knows that the man has been nothing but honest. “I won’t… I won’t disrespect the sword again.”

Without an answer, Hannibal passes the boy to stand in the training circle. There is little of the man’s kindness to be seen, none of his patience, made unreadable behind a hardened countenance and little more regard for Will than a wolf has for a field mouse.

“Come.”

Dark eyes narrow with focus on Will as he steps closer, taking in every movement of muscle - intentional and involuntary. Unarmed, unshielded, Hannibal opens his arms at his sides, and watches Will evenly, voice still.

“Strike me.”

Will licks his lips, turns to look behind him, if perhaps his slave is there to bring Hannibal something to cover him, another sword, something. But he sees no sign of her, no sign of anyone, and turns back to Hannibal with a quick shake of his head.

“You’re unarmed," he says.

“I do not need a sword to hurt you, boy. Strike me.”

“I don’t want to.”

Hannibal takes two steps towards Will and the boy cowers.

“In war no one asks. No one waits. If a soldier is unarmed he will stand and fight against swords to keep his life. Against spears. Against horses and the monsters that ride them. You will strike me or I will strike you and you will feel it.”

“We’re not in war,” Will whispers. “Hannibal, please.”

The words still Hannibal’s hand for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to widen a little, before another blow connects, shocking in its speed and no slouch for strength, though a fraction of what Hannibal holds back.

“Are we not?” he asks, and the question does not beg for an answer. It is a challenge, savage as the strikes he’s laid across Will’s face. “What a relief that will be for your countrymen now preparing. For King Darius and his legions, amassing now on shores across that sea,” he snarls, catching Will by the hair and turning him towards the blue water, calm and dark and seemingly endless.

“It is by my sword and those of my brothers that you have not known war in your meager life,” intones Hannibal. “And it will be by yours that your sons might share the same blissful ignorance.” He releases the boy with a rough shove and forced to still his breath to the stillness of a stalking predator, he returns to stand across from the boy, arms outstretched again. “Or will you go and tell them, peacemaker - that there is no war, and that fighting is beneath them? Will you take your poetry to their shores and disperse their arms with words?”

Will’s brows draw, distraught and confused by Hannibal’s cruelty, and he feels a coiled anger twist in him at Hannibal’s disregard for his beliefs in peace, his genuine desire to cause it without the need for bloodshed.

With a sharp cry, Will lunges, the sword swings wild, past Hannibal’s side as the man takes half a step to the left and strikes Will against the back of the head with a sharp slap.

“Where is your posture?” he asks, walking languidly to stand before the boy again. “Hold your bearing.” Will tries again, another miss, another slap, and then it is a volley of blows, aimless and angry, Will swinging the sword merely to hope to hit something and finding Hannibal always in front of him, always out of reach of his blade. “Pathetic,” he says at last, when Will stills himself to catch his breath, shaking, tears hot against his eyelids but not yet spilling. “You claim not to wish me dishonor. Do not wish it on yourself. You are a disgrace, this way, after this time.”

“Stop,” Will grits out, eyes down, unblinking for fear of upsetting his tears to the ground below.

A laugh, mirthless. “Is that how the poem begins, peacemaker? It is all the Persians would allow you to speak before cutting your tongue from your head. But if you are the best Athens has to offer then you will need not go even so far as Ephesus to share it with them. They will arrive on our doorsteps soon enough.”

With gritted teeth and a strangled cry, Will heaves the sword towards Hannibal, an unexpected and unpracticed angle driven by anger that forces Hannibal to step faster than before.

“Better, Will, and still wrong. Where is your follow-through, your pursuit? You are in your tunic - no panoply, no shield, and naught but your sword and still so slow. If they spring at night you may have little more than this, and will you yield with only one shoddy strike?”

The boy’s hips turn for another attempt and Hannibal snares him by the hair, bending him back nearly in half.

“You will be punished for every mistake you make henceforth,” he is told. “If it is something I have taught you, and you perform it incorrectly, I will make you suffer for it, since kindness has given you such laxity as this.”

Will makes a soft sound, tears drying on his cheeks already as he twists free, raises the blade while Hannibal is close in an attempt to strike him at close range and finds that the man simply pushes the blade away with the flat of his palm, expression displeased.

“I have taught you to stand. I have taught you to move the sword like you would move yourself. I have had you whimper against me begging to be freed from training claiming you understood and then this.”

Will swallows hard, finds his feet and holds his sword as taught, for a moment not moving at all before executing another lunge, perfect in all but its speed, and Hannibal deflects it again.

“Faster.”

Will tries again.

“You will be struck before you even move if you take so long to gather yourself.”

Will tries, again and again, until Hannibal catches the sword against his side with his arm, pulling Will close with the motion.

“Speed should not take priority over the quality of your forms, Will, you’re getting worse.”

“You told me to do it faster!” Will says, desperate, voice higher, tears brightening his eyes again. He’s sweating, hot, already tired and upset by Hannibal’s words, by his indifference.

In the moment afforded the boy to catch his breath, the pressure does not lessen, but merely shifts. Holding him close by his weapon, kept easily even as Will tugs weakly against it, Hannibal regards the boy cooly, his voice soft.

“Perhaps you were not meant for war,” he considers, lifting a hand to press it to Will’s cheek. It is not a strike but it is no more kind than one, lacking in warmth or tenderness. “You treat this for show, a requirement to meet so that you may return to a life of comfort, while men like mine die on spear and sword, crushed beneath horses and catapults, for you to afford such privilege.”

Hannibal swallows, hard.

“If you had heard their screams, like animals at the slaughter, the way they beg like spirits already departed for their mothers, their children, for mercy...” He pushes Will away and backs slowly away from him, mouth curled into a bitter snarl as he resumes his position. “Perhaps then you would care,” he snorts softly. “Perhaps not.”

Hannibal’s sigh is unsteady when he exhales it, and he shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “Punishment for every miss. I will beat you until you are blue to make you understand.”

Will makes a sound very close to a sob and brings a hand to draw the back of his wrist against his cheeks. “I can’t fight,” Will says, breath hitching. “I can’t… can’t fight well. I would die quickly.”

“If they let you. A very easy resignation. But you will try before I grant you that mercy. I doubt your enemies would.”

Will sobs again and sniffs before shakily taking up his position again, lunging and missing, though this time Hannibal steps to the side of him, strikes the side of his hand just below Will’s ribs.

“Death would come painfully, there,” Hannibal tells him. “You would choke on your own blood as your lungs filled with it and you spat it free.”

Will swallows thickly, tries again.

“A slow agony, you’ve chosen.” Hannibal removes his fingers from where they rest against Will’s stomach. “It would take you _hours_ to die.”

Will can barely see, over and over he strikes, attempts to protect his sides, and loses the balance of his blade, attempts to protect his face and loses the strength of the lunge. Over and over until he falls to his knees, unbalanced by a wide sweep of his blade and curls up to cry.

He does not want war, and now he cannot stop seeing it. Hannibal’s calm words painting a fresco around them, of screams and blood and broken lives, every strike still harsh against Will’s skin, though he was but gently touched there, every thought delivered in slow words and an even tone, over and over and all Will can feel is lives not his own, passing through him, shaming him in his weakness.

Hannibal does not go to him, though the sudden desire surges almost unrestrained through his limbs. He lets the boy weep, wracked with sobs and dampening the earth beneath his cheeks, and simply waits, his eyes drifting towards the sea again.

It was scant information that arrived, but enough. A merchant crossing through the islands had seen triremes near Chios, undesignated by any known sigils of Greece, and reported it at port upon arrival. Enough for Hannibal to now watch the horizon far closer than even before. Enough to know that past those islands, unrelenting, legions of the Empire would be rising again.

Marathon was everything and nothing, affording years of peace that any student of war would know matter little to a king disgraced by that loss, by the humiliation of Sardis before that. And yet they were the only years known to the boy at Hannibal’s feet, and it opens a raw ache in him - memories quickly choked back and buried deep - to know that their victory was not enough to assure this boy a lifetime of such ease.

He ducks not to bring Will to his feet but to take up his sword for him.

“Go. We are done.”

Will flinches, expecting more blows, expecting a flogging for the number of lunges he missed, the number of times he sacrificed his footing for a stronger shot, the number of times he struck in anger and hit only air. He pushes himself up on all fours and it takes him a long time to raise his head to look at Hannibal before him. The man stands stoic, no anger on his features now, just cool, nostalgic sadness, and Will feels his entire chest ache for him.

“Hannibal -”

“Go, Will. To your room,” Hannibal sighs, runs his fingers over the hilt of the sword, an absent meditative gesture. Will wonders how well he knows the weapon, if he knows every etch and scar along it. “Think on your lesson.”

Will shakes when he stands, knees and hands filthy with dirt, tunic smeared in it. His face is wet with tears and sweat, cheeks red from humiliation, from the strikes so cruel against him.

Without a word, Will returns to the house, returns to his room. He forgoes the pitcher of water there, for washing his face and hands, he forgoes it for drinking. He curls up on the floor by the expansive windows and sobs. Hoping that this is not his last night in this house that he has grown to love the space and freedom of, the last night with this man who he has grown to not want to leave.

The sun has long since vanished across the horizon when there is a knock at Will’s door. He waits for the words to come - _the general wishes to see you_ \- but they do not, and when the door opens he pushes himself to sit up, nearly crying out from the stiffness of his muscles, overworked and laid against the hard ground.

“You need to eat.” Hannibal lingers in the doorway for a moment more before stepping in, taking in the sight of the filthy boy where he dropped himself to the floor. He lets the door slip closed behind him, a plate of fresh fish and warm bread and oil-slick olives in hand. It is set aside, on the small table beside Will’s bed, and he seats himself near the boy, brows drawn.

“Will.”

Will lets his eyes flick to Hannibal’s regarding the general with a look mingled between regret and hope. Then he lets himself look away.

“I always told my father that apprenticeship would do me ill,” he says quietly. “I haven’t the strength for battle, nor the stomach. I quake in fear at your words, at the things you have only described seeing.” He brings a hand up to run his face, dry now but still streaked with tear tracks and dust. Then he slides his fingers into his hair and soothes it back. “I dishonored you and I’m sorry,” he says.

Hannibal hums, accepting the apology - moreso the realizations that surround it - and his jaw works for a moment before he responds, “Then work harder.”

He skims a hand down his face, exhaustion drawing lines of age beyond his years, and settles it back against leg.

“If I did not think you capable of improving, I would not bother. I have many more uses for my time than this,” he murmurs. “You can become strong. You can become _better_. And in that, there is confidence. In confidence, bravery. I have seen the broadest and most boastful soldiers quake so hard they dropped their shields when the call rises to move, for they spoke only words without skills to make them truthful. And I have seen smaller men by far fight savage as bears because they knew themselves capable of it.”

A sigh, soft.

“Why did you stop, Will?”

Will parts his lips, takes a breath, adjust just enough to stretch one leg out beside himself, numb from where he had lain on it all day.

“I saw them,” he says quietly, taking a moment before lifting his eyes and keeping them on Hannibal as he speaks. “I saw every man you spoke of. Felt every wound. Around me grew the reeking battlefields and swamps, men with teeth bared in anger and in pain, dead and dying, I saw every single one.”

Will swallows, blinks, feels his brows draw higher.

“And I shamed them. Every one.”

He lets his eyes slip to where Hannibal’s hand rests and regards it. Strong, and calloused with battle and work, a life lived, not merely given. A life earned. Will curls his fingers against his own palms, blisters not yet burst there from the day’s practice, beneath, skin already split from other days and other toils.

Without a word, Will shifts back, just enough, and moves to rest his head against Hannibal’s hand, to feel it cool against his cheek.

Hannibal watches, for a moment more unmoving. Feels the warmth of Will’s cheek against his hand, the same that connected earlier so many times, made relentless with drive and conviction and anger.

The anger sits heaviest, uncomfortable in Hannibal’s chest, and he turns his hand to cradle Will’s cheek in it before bringing the other to his matted hair, to brush it back from his face.

“I should not have raised my hand to you,” he murmurs. “Not without warning or explanation. My frustration was not, then, with you.”

He traces Will’s cheek with his thumb, just beneath his eye, reddened from tears, and brings his other palm down Will’s neck to his back, rubbing slowly.

“It is good that you saw them. Good that you know. And tomorrow, then, you will try harder than today. The next day harder than that.”

Will turns his face gently into the hand caressing him and closes his eyes with a sigh. He will try harder. He will work. He will see the men behind his eyes who looked on him with such hatred for his weakness and his lack of care for their strength.

For a while, neither say anything, and Will just dozes while Hannibal sits, lost in thought. Then Will shifts, just a little, just enough, and turns his lips to the palm against him before turning so he can see Hannibal from where he lies.

“What did the messenger bring?” he asks.

Hannibal’s throat works, a rough swallow, expression distant still. He curls his fingers through Will’s hair again, turn down to stroke softly over his bare shoulder, darkened from sun and soil. He does not want to tell him because he does not again want to see that fear shake him so entirely, to know that Will sees his words so vividly behind his eyes. To save him another year, perhaps more, and allow him to live his life without the threat of war pressed sharp as iron against his throat as Hannibal himself has always lived.

He does not want to tell him, because doing so would give voice to the fears gathering cold in Hannibal’s own belly, rather than allowing him the palest hope that the message was a mistake, and the merchant was confused, drunk, too sea-weary to make sense of a lesser-known mark on the ships he saw.

And he knows he does them both a disservice by hiding the likely truth of it.

“News,” Hannibal murmurs softly. “Triremes off the Empire’s coast. Unmarked as for Greece.”

Will blinks, eyes on Hannibal. He can see, to his own surprise, to his own worry, that Hannibal is frightened. The news has struck something within him that had drawn that man forth, the creature who had struck Will and taunted him, who had shown him the multiple ways he would have died had he taken up the blade now.

“Perhaps they will pass on their way,” Will ventures, though he knows that it’s a false hope, and Hannibal’s wan smile confirms it. Instead, Will just settles against Hannibal further, to feel the man he remembers return to him.

“Will you take dinner with me?” he asks.

Lifting the boy’s cheek with his hand, Hannibal’s other skims softly down to cup his face, to study him, remember him this way, now. There is no war at the doorstep yet, no certain news on which to mobilize, only the first ripples of the tide incoming. He is young still, and beautiful, and so free of worry that Hannibal can hardly comprehend it, and if the news is true in its portent then Hannibal will watch as lines carve themselves too soon into Will’s gentle features, and see his back bend beneath the pressure building.

And so he looks, for a moment, to know him as he is, before brushing a chaste kiss across his brow.

“I will.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to say it, wants it to sound seductive and irresistible and knows he will fall short at nervous and stuttering. So instead, Will moves to stand, reaches for Hannibal's hand and presses his lips to the palm of it, to the wrist, before settling at his side and resting his head gently against Hannibal’s thigh. He wants to tell him that his body burns when he goes to bed alone, that he remembers every brush of fingers and whispered word. That he remembers the way Hannibal had pinned him in the hallway and feels his blood race with it. He lifts his head as Hannibal's fingers curl beneath his chin, and smiles.
> 
> "I want to go with you," he says softly, presses closer still. "To your chambers. To your bed."

As per Hannibal's promise, for every success Will finds with the horses, he is allowed to care for the hounds. Hannibal does not have many, two males and a female, and they are lanky, shaggy things compared to Will’s dogs at home. Regardless, he finds the hours of his day fade to a blissful endlessness when he is with the animals.

Weeks before Will had noticed that the bitch was growing round with pups, content to curl up on a heavy sheepskin as Will stroked behind her ears and talked to her as he did the horses every morning.

The slaves care for the dogs when Will does not, feeding them and setting them free to run their fill before returning them for the night to the kennels. And most evenings, Will can hear them in joyful clamor taking their dinner at the back of the house before they are locked away.

Ever since the messenger, Will has found less time to see them. Waking earlier to stand on the packed earth and go through the slow forms he had been taught before attempting to speed them up and still keep his posture. Most mornings, he returns to the house before Hannibal can know, allows himself to doze before he is woken, before he greets Hannibal with a sleepy smile and a grateful kiss.

This morning is not unusual in that. And Will regards a scroll in his room as he waits to be summoned for the greeting he has begun to quite happily look forward to.

The paper scrapes softly as he unfurls it, surprised not to see the familiar script of his father, but rather symbols that at first glance appear as nonsense. Odd characters, staves and sharp angles, gathered in groups separated by paired dots.

“Words,” Will mutters, glancing towards the doorway in wait for someone to arrive, to explain what it means, but the house is quiet excepting the dawning sounds of day as the slaves begin their duties.

“They’re words,” he says again, lips twisted in thought, but he can’t make sense of them. Sitting back cross-legged on his bed, he spreads the parchment flat and holds it there. At first he tries to align them with the letters he knows, finding similarities in shape but none that result in anything sensible, and too many that are too strange to find their kin in his own language.

He’s up again just as quickly, padding barefoot towards the kitchen, where Hannibal’s attendant regards him with the same dubious look they usually exchange.

“What is this?”

Her eyes dart to the outstretched paper and back to Will again, and she offers no more than a shrug of one shoulder.

“Who _left_ this?” he asks instead, sighing. “Was it Hannibal?”

A flicker of amusement in her expression, before she trains the corners of her lips back to a stern neutrality and continues wiping down the table.

“What do you think?” she finally answers, and Will huffs softly.

“I can’t read it.”

“You think I can?”

“You write for him. You’re his scribe.”

She steps closer, rag folded in her hands, and regards the mysterious characters with a genuine shake of her head.

“Not that. Greek, yes. Phoenician, yes.” She shakes her head again and steps away to resume her duties. “But not that.”

Will drops onto one of the stools and squints at the letters. “Have you seen him?”

“Of course,” she replies, a catlike smile appearing mysterious and brief.

“Where?”

She shrugs again, and Will all but groans his frustration. A puzzle then, for him to resolve on his own. He folds his arm onto the table, scroll spread beneath the other, and rests his cheek there as she calmly washes down the table around where he has draped himself.

Until suddenly, she clears her throat, a startling thing in comparison to the silence in which she normally carries herself. Will lifts his eyes, and she points, once, towards the empty pitcher atop the shelf.

For a moment he sits still, then Will pushes himself to stand, letting the scroll curl up again on the table as he brings over the stool to stand on to reach the pitcher. He returns the stool, takes up his scroll and follows one of the other slaves to fill the pitcher with milk, still warm.

He's found he does enjoy the taste, not as much as Hannibal seems to, to drink it daily, but he does like it. The earthiness and natural warmth of it.

When he returns, the kitchen is cleared, food upon the table for Will and Hannibal to enjoy, and he sets the pitcher down before returning to the corridor dividing their rooms to wait. Hannibal is not within his chambers, nor is he in Will’s, and Will finds himself suddenly utterly impatient to see the man, to ask him about this, to listen to him read the strange characters and follow along.

His muscles still ache a little from the morning's training and he rolls his shoulder, over and over until he closes his eyes and relaxes into the motions.

He doesn’t startle when Hannibal touches him, but he does quickly turn to him, eyes wide with surprise, and a smile that suggests he is genuinely happy the man is here.

"The milk will be cold,” he says, and realizes quickly how strange that sounded before he laughs, shakes his head. "The sun is high already, and I have not seen you,” he amends.

Hannibal presses his palm to Will’s cheek, eyes crinkled in amusement, and traces his fingers down to Will’s chin to cup it softly and lift it to him. His other presses, as expected, but somehow _more_ than before, to the inside of Will’s thigh, fingers tickling softly as the man leans into Will a little, lips held against his cheek - soft and sweet - for a long moment together.

“I have seen you,” Hannibal tells him, without yet relinquishing their greeting, openly touching the boy and delighting in how Will softens flushed and eager beneath it. “I have seen you with your sword. Your shield. Without me, working - practicing.”

Another kiss, unusual despite the increased closeness that they both feel, drawing them together in fleeting touches and warm grasps throughout their days.

“You may not see it yourself, but you are improving. You are stronger than you were even a week ago,” praises Hannibal, his voice a low rumble, and he rubs his cheek softly against Will’s hair before finally releasing him.

“I have a surprise for you,” he adds, almost absently, as he makes his way towards the kitchen. “Have you found the note I left?”

Will feels a shiver take him, entirely too pleased by the touches, finding himself wanting more of them, over and over even as he follows behind Hannibal. 

"I found something,” he admits, and the resignation in his tone is delivered with a smile as he brings the scroll up to set to the table again. "No one could help me read it."

Will stands to pour milk for them both and sits back in his chair with a gentle frown as he takes a drink.

"I've never seen such marks before,” he muses, before the rest of Hannibal’s words penetrate and Will blinks. "A surprise?"

Hannibal’s brows lift as he settles into his seat, glancing to his slave who sets down his plate and raises her own brow in return. “You asked others for help?” responds Hannibal, returning an easy smile to the girl - who seems eminently pleased with herself - before she goes. “Clever, but futile.”

He drinks down the milk, somehow sweeter still for having been fetched by the boy, Hannibal notices, and takes up a tear of bread to begin eating.

“What would you need to read it? A letter? Two?” It’s a challenge, and Hannibal’s eyes sparkle with pleasure at it. “The language is Greek since you do not yet speak my own, but the writing is not. How little do you require to begin making sense of it?”

Will’s lips part, brows drawn in his displeasure before he relaxes his expression and reaches for the scroll again. Within he can see a certain pattern to the markings, a lot are the same - similar sounds or letters - some look like they have fallen and bent, slightly different than their counterparts.

In truth, Will wants it translated for him. But he knows that is not what Hannibal wants to hear.

"These." Will points to three marks, two which recur the most and one that appears twice but beside each of the others. "Tell me what these are."

Hannibal only just restrains his approval of the boy’s brightness, his wit, fit to bursting for it but training his expression to show only traces of it that cannot all be entirely fought down. He slides the parchment across the table towards himself, tracing the shapes of the two characters Will has chosen and giving each a pronunciation - just a sound.

And with that, he watches as Will scoots his stool closer to the table, squinting in concentration and mouthing the sounds to himself. Fragments of words, each word a fragment of the whole, but enough pieces now to begin placing other sounds beside them. 

“The languages do not mesh,” Hannibal clarifies, another hint. “Look for the sounds, the amount of letters will not match precisely.”

Will blinks up at him, frustration dawning hot on his cheeks, before he points to the smallest of the words. “To?”

A hum of approval, and Will could leap from his chair in elation, grinning wide. The word beside it is determined to be ‘the’ and this informs Will enough to begin guessing - based on what sounds he has now parsed out - the others.

“Come? Come to the,” Will sounds out, but shakes his head at the last word as Hannibal eats, looking on in an extraordinary pleasure. “It’s the same letter here, as here, but none of the others match.”

In an instant, his enthusiasm wanes in a childish frustration, huffing a sigh of displeasure as his food grows cold beside him. “I can’t -”

“Kennel,” Hannibal tells him, finally. “Come to the kennel.” A pause, and a faint smile, devious. “You were too busy training to make it, I suppose.”

Will eyes him, watching as Hannibal puts an olive into his mouth and chews, remembers in a brief hot flush of pleasure how Hannibal had fed him at the table weeks before, while his hands wrought havoc with Will’s endurance. He swallows and reaches for a piece of bread of his own, to sate even a little of his hunger. 

"The kennel," he repeats, frowning now in thought not irritation, before his expression clears to delight. "She had the pups!"

"She did." Hannibal smiles.

"How many? When?"

"Early this morning." The older man crumbs some cheese over a piece of bread and passes it to Will to eat, though the boy, in his excitement, seems to only because he knows how. "She had seven."

"Seven!"

Will looks ecstatic, smiling and flushed with his heart hammering and eyes bright. He eats what he is given, swallowing more milk before almost bouncing in his seat with impatience.

"May I see them?" he asks. "Who will care for them? I know how, I've helped deliver a litter before. They were so small, all of them, but father wanted to give them to others, we already had so many dogs."

He trails off, biting his lip to keep quiet as he looks at Hannibal and the undeniable fondness there. Will parts his lips with the tip of his tongue.

"Will you keep them?"

"I will not," Hannibal says, watches as Will’s expression falls before continuing. "I have three very reliable hunting dogs. But you have none, yet. You may keep whatever two pups you feel would make good hunting dogs for you."

"I may keep two," Will repeats, heart beating too quickly, smile almost splitting his face before he slips from his chair and makes it around the table to wrap his arms around Hannibal's shoulders tight.

The stool all but clatters to the ground in his enthusiasm and Hannibal laughs, a single note of pleasure, beneath the boy’s arms. He brings a hand up to rest against them, stroking with his thumb, and tilts his head back just enough for his lips to drift against Will’s cheek. They linger like this, moments - whole minutes, perhaps - as Hannibal feels Will’s heart racing in delight, breathes in the sweetness of him, sweat and dust and youth and joy.

“Go,” Hannibal finally murmurs, but catches Will’s wrist as the boy goes to part from him. “Finish your food. Do not waste.” Another brush of his thumb, gently. “And I will not have you fainting from lack of eating after training this morning.”

He isn’t certain he’s ever seen anyone - man, boy, horse, dog - eat so quickly as Will in his eagerness to clear his plate. A second cup of milk is taken, to Hannibal’s rumbling approval, and he’s scarcely wiped it from his lips before Hannibal stands slowly and Will is on his feet again.

“Now?”

“Now,” agrees the man, watching Will race from the room still barefoot and following slowly after.

The kennels are fairly dark, enough for the dogs to be comfortable in the heat of the day. In the back corner lies the dog with her pups, little squirming things blindly wriggling closer, for heat and milk. They are hairless, tiny tails tiny paws, and Will falls to his knees in joy beside them, reaching forward to stroke behind the mother's ears, murmuring praise.

"Brave girl," he sighs, petting the dog as she relaxes, used to Will and Hannibal both, trusting them around her young. "Look at your beautiful pups. Seven!" Will grins, turns to Hannibal. "Seven dogs!"

He does not touch the pups while they feed, just watches. He would need to check the sex when they were a few days older, when they opened their eyes. Then he could choose.

"You helped deliver them?" he asks, smiles when Hannibal nods. "I wish I had been there. They're so little."

Will bites his lip, unsure how he could choose just two from this litter. Then his smile slowly grows and he sits up higher to watch Hannibal closely.

"May I choose three?" He asks, eyes narrowed in mischief, "May I earn three?"

Hannibal sits onto a small bench nearby, easing in the dark warmth of the kennel, settling with the soft, squeaking sounds the little things make as they suckle. Small enough he could hold one in his hand and still have room to spare, he turns his eyes to Will only when he catches that particular boyish tenor in his voice.

His lips thin as though considering the proposition at great length, before he allows, “Perhaps.”

It is entirely charming that the boy is so drawn to animals. Hannibal has overheard him speaking with them so earnestly that in passing, more than once, he’s wondered if Will was conversing with one of the slaves, only to find him in negotiations with one of the more stubborn horses, or cavorting with the hounds. The mark of good character, Hannibal knows, soundness of mind and spirit to be able to connect with them so readily, even as his connections with people are more tenuous.

Animals are certainly more trustworthy than most men will ever be.

“How do you suggest to earn them?” he asks, obliging when the bitch lifts her muzzle towards him, and lowering a hand to cup her muzzle fondly as she licks it.

Will presses his lips together and smiles wider. Them. More pups than just one more.

He leans closer, sets his hands against the bench and arches his back, eyes narrowing in thought.

"I would like to learn," he says. "I want to learn what those markings mean. I want to speak the language they belong to."

Will hums and shifts closer still.

"I want to grow faster with the sword. Surer with the spear. Let me earn the pups with knowledge and effort." He grins then and tilts his head, knowing Hannibal watches his body, the way it curves.

"Let me earn them by being entirely myself, becoming the man you want me to be."

Hannibal looks towards the mass of puppies wriggling and squirming through the soft straw. He imagines them all as the size of whichever dog was their father - or worse, the size of their mother, a shaggy, high-shouldered beast he’s seen take down adult deer when she’s feeling adventurous. Ten of them, in total, baying away any prey Hannibal could hope to hunt, roaming his property in a pack.

More then, after that.

A sigh, long-suffering, before he looks back to the boy who has slunk his way between Hannibal’s legs, hands on either side of him.

He catches Will’s chin on the side of his finger, and skims his thumb across the wide grin that tells Hannibal the boy has won, long before Hannibal has allowed himself the loss.

“I will devise means to test you,” he intones, feigning burdens now erased by the softness of Will’s expression, by the curve of his mouth. “It will not be easy, and you will be unlikely to earn them all. Two are given to you. The rest are up to you. And all are in your care. I will not spend my time cleaning up the shit from your hounds.”

"Yes," Will grins, turning his head to skim lips over Hannibal’s fingers. "Thank you, yes." Then Will shifts back to look at the dogs again, delighted, determined to keep all of them. "May I sit a while more?" he asks, and it earns a thoughtful hum in answer.

"You are not exempt from studies, Will. Today I will drill you on the sword before we start with the axe. In the evening you will muck the stalls. Then I will teach you the sounds and meanings of the characters you learned today, and you will remember them."

Despite the words, the promise of a difficult, exhausting day, Will’s smile is like the sun, pleased and warm and bright, and he nods. With a sigh, Hannibal relents him ten more minutes, drawing a hand through his warm curls as he goes. He does not miss the way Will arches into the touch, almost nuzzles as Hannibal passes.

He works the boy tirelessly, and is pleased - and perhaps a little dismayed, thoughts still lingering on having nearly a dozen hounds at once - by how well Will keeps up. Even as his body tires, his spirits remain high, and any spare breath he has is given to chattering eagerly about his thoughts on the puppies. How he’s cared for puppies before, and that he thinks the brindled one looks strong already, but that you must look out for the littlest ones, too, to make sure they aren’t edged out, and finally Hannibal simply comes at him harder to quiet him back into a breathless pant.

No more reprieve is given when they’ve eaten and retired to the study, Hannibal settling contentedly into his chair to hear the boy read aloud from his texts for a time, before moving on to the scroll that Hannibal left for him that morning.

Hannibal walks him again through the characters, each in turn until he can point to them at random and Will knows their sound, and then he writes the phrase again in his own tongue, rather than a bastardized Greek.

It is rough-sounding, but not without its own peculiar warmth when he speaks it low and so near to Will. It’s silly, really, asking him again and again to come to the kennels, but Will can’t help a pleasant prickle along his skin when Hannibal speaks it to him.

And so it is little stress, then, and immense relief when Hannibal brings his hand to rest against the small of the boy’s back.

“There is more to them, these signs, than just sounds and words. Mysteries of which I have passing knowledge but not so much as others may have.” Once, long ago it seems, and he wonders for a moment if there are any left who truly do. Brows knitting, he endeavors. “This sound, here, it shares the name of a torch, a flame - its shape, as well,” he explains. “It is more than its sound or the word it forms, it is the illumination of understanding - a torch, you see - held aloft. A mark you may make upon your books to aid you in learning, upon your skin to remain clear-headed. And not without risk, as flame burns, as well. Understanding often comes at the price of pain.”

He draws a breath, and downs a swallow of wine, fingers spreading across the letter.

“I know not if it makes any sense to tell you. Things I learned long ago, and more poorly than I should have.”

Will listens, fascinated. The sounds are still foreign to him, still sharp and almost angry, but he can feel the power of them, feel the meaning Hannibal tells him of, understands how it works.

"I have heard of the care people take in naming. People, creatures, ships. What you name it determines its destiny, one way or another." He smiles, curls his arms on the table and sets his chin atop.

"I understand,” he says, a slow blink, tired and languid in equal parts and he shifts and settles. It is late, dark evening cool over the house and property, another long day awaiting him once dawn comes. And yet Will has not felt so contented in many days. Truly and to the depth of his being.

He bites his lip, takes a breath and sits up again, nervous, fingers fidgeting before he sets them to his lap beneath the table.

"Shall we retire?" he asks, eyes down until he flicks them to Hannibal quickly, curious, cautious, and beneath it all entirely hopeful.

Shaking off the thoughts that ensnared him, Hannibal lets the scroll roll up - their shared marks and notes scribbled on it and smudging as it furls - and only then moves his hand against Will’s back, a slow rub up and down, no more than that. Will stretches, catlike and pleased at the affection, and Hannibal regards him curiously.

“Retire where?”

He is careful to keep his voice neutral, no leading and no pressure, despite how very, _very_ desperately he wishes to bare Will and press their bodies together and kiss him until their lungs burn.

Will swallows, presses his lips together before parting them with a sigh.

He wants to say it, wants it to sound seductive and irresistible and knows he will fall short at nervous and stuttering. So instead, Will moves to stand, reaches for Hannibal's hand and presses his lips to the palm of it, to the wrist, before settling at his side and resting his head gently against Hannibal’s thigh. He wants to tell him that his body burns when he goes to bed alone, that he remembers every brush of fingers and whispered word. That he remembers the way Hannibal had pinned him in the hallway and feels his blood race with it. He lifts his head as Hannibal's fingers curl beneath his chin, and smiles.

"I want to go with you," he says softly, presses closer still. "To your chambers. To your bed."

Will trembles, waits for the words to fall flat. Waits just to see if maybe they will not.

A long moment passes, driving the boy’s heart into fluttering harder against his ribs, as Hannibal seeks to still his own at the words he has waited so patiently to hear. Permission granted, rather than simply taken as he might have, countless opportunities in which every part of his body came alive with the thought of simply having that which his mind tells him is his to take, but his heart would not allow.

“Yes,” Hannibal responds, a single word that in it carries the ache of months of desire. “Yes.”

He strokes the backs of his fingers along Will’s cheek and then moves to stand, offering a hand down to the nervous little thing who takes it and rises alongside him.

“Later,” he tells his slave - awaiting them for dinner - as they pass, fingers entwined. She gives no longer look necessary than to simply nod and go on her way, and the door to Hannibal’s room has scarcely tapped closed before he frames Will’s face in his hands and brings their mouths together.

It's a shiver, full-bodied and relentless and Will opens his mouth to it entirely, surrendering to the heat of the man before him, the weight and power of him as he settles small hands against the front of his tunic and curls them.

It’s sweet, warm, and Will makes a sound against Hannibal’s lips the older man swallows. And another and another, as strong hands slide over his arms, down to his wrists and back up to his shoulders.

Will arches, a needy motion, pushes up on his toes as he lets fingers crawl further, to Hannibal’s neck, up around his shoulders. He is so much taller, larger, and Will shivers pleasantly at the notion. 

“I have waited,” Hannibal murmurs, as they part just long enough to breathe, not because the boy doesn’t know - he must, he’s felt the hesitant eagerness in Hannibal’s touches, felt his body stirred painfully in desire for him - but because it feels important to say, to give voice to the longing that has kept Hannibal up at night and made him rise eager each morning in anticipation for what the day might bring for them.

_I want you_ is what he wants Will to hear. _I adore you. Let me make it known._

Strong arms lift the boy from his toes and Hannibal slips an arm beneath Will’s legs to support him, uttering a low, rumbling pleasure against Will’s lips when the boy slips his skinny legs around Hannibal’s waist. To the bed they go, Will held tight even as Hannibal sits first upon it, and sets the boy across his lap.

There is a question in his eyes, foreheads pressed together, as Hannibal brings his fingers to the pins that keep Will’s chiton draped across his shoulder. Another kiss, small, is his answer and he works each free with no more hurry than is necessary, to allow the loose garment to slip from his arm, before tugging it off over his head and casting it aside.

He has seen Will nude before, but it is a revelation to see him this way when spread across Hannibal’s legs. His to touch and his to kiss and his to worship with a fervor that resonates deep in his chest as he wraps his hands around Will’s waist and keeps him astride, while pushing himself back to lay across the bed.

“Beautiful.”

Will feels his cheeks darken, sitting astride Hannibal so bared as the man holds him gently still to _look_ , to see. He shifts, just a little, enough to rub against Hannibal, enough to draw a sound from him in pleasure. Then he does it again, with deliberate intent, knowing his blush is creeping down his neck, to his small chest.

"I dream of your hands," Will admits, bending at the waist, back arching pleasurably as he kisses against Hannibal’s neck, up to his jaw, to his lips. "Some days I stumble to feel them again."

It's such an innocent confession, so sweet, and Hannibal slides his hands soft over Will’s back to his shoulders to hold him closer.

“You have them,” he tells the boy, turning his cheek softly against Will’s to kiss a path down the graceful line of his neck, tasting the soft skin where it curves to meet his shoulder. “You have me.”

Surrounded in Hannibal’s arms, Will is turned gently until he is beneath, and Hannibal heavy above. Lips join and part languid, fingertips tracing the other’s face, a gentle pressure as their hips meet again and again, rubbing slowly one against the other. It is only with a soft growl of reluctance that Hannibal draws away from the boy under him to sit back on his knees, and work his own robes free.

They fall away in drapes of cloth, the heavier himation first discarded, and as it is, Will notices the first curious curls of images, black as coal, that twist across Hannibal’s skin. Withholding his breath, a moment of caution as Hannibal approaches this territory yet unknown, he sweeps his chiton off over his head and lays it to rest over the edge of the bed by their feet.

Hannibal brings his hands to rest upon his knees and studies not only the length of Will’s body laid bare before him, but his eyes as they widen, lips parting as he takes in the broad, painted chest in front of him, hair curling where the designs swirl and twist, ending as though unfinished.

A strange and fantastic scene, dark blacks and blues, that wrap across his body. Spirals and lines and dots surround unusual animals, marked into his skin. Rams with curled horns and cloven hooves, cats and wolves with enormous talons outstretched, a bull with enormous horns and flared nostrils, and countless other creatures and symbols that Will can’t identify.

And among them all are scars, many, of every shape and length. It is a body born for battle, and forged stronger in it, but for all its strength it is Hannibal who waits now for approval, acknowledgment, his breath held and eyes dark.

For a long moment, Will says nothing. Responds not at all. Then he pushes himself back a little, just enough to sit up and press his fingers to bare skin now, to feel the raised designs against his fingertips.

"These are incredible," he breathes, utterly awed, entirely enthralled, and he can feel Hannibal’s muscles relax when he sees Will smile, take the foreign and strange images in with childlike curiosity and pleasure. Will lets his hands slip lower, following the tail of the enormous cat until it ends, then the scars that run like a ladder beneath that.

Lower and lower to Hannibal's stomach, lower still to where he rests hard between his legs, larger than Will, darker skin, darker hair, and Will’s eyes widen again.

"What do they mean?" He asks softly, eyes back up to Hannibal’s again, bright, cheeks redder. "How did you get them?"

He does not lay his body over Will again yet, but remains as he is, held in place by the gentle touch of a boy half his age.

“They are earned, through tasks and trials. Marks of my tribe, my life, made long ago,” he murmurs, drawing a breath as Will’s hand presses to his belly and slides higher still, through the dense hair curled across his chest, over hewn muscles and the ridges of the marks he wears. “The lines are cut, rubbed with ash and ink, and left to heal.”

"It sounds like agony," Will murmurs, eyes still wide, fingers splaying and curling before he slips out from beneath Hannibal entirely and kneels before him instead.

"Your entire life is drawn in pain. The tattoos, these." Will skims the scars, pale against the man’s ruddy skin. "What pleasures you've earned."

Hannibal places his hands on Will’s shoulders, and follows gently the bend of his arms, to hold his wrists and place Will’s hands against his hips.

“They don’t carry the memories of pain,” Hannibal assures him, “but of survival. Victory. Pain fades, but that does not.”

Tracing Will’s waist with his palm, gliding across his hip, Hannibal finally lets his touch slip slowly into the crevice between his legs, and palms the boy beneath his hand.

“And there are promises of pleasure, always, to be won,” he adds with a fleeting grin, stroking once along the length of Will’s cock before letting it sleep free to lay hardening against his legs again.

“Lay back,” Hannibal coaxes him, chasing the boy with a kiss as he spreads himself across the bed once more, before being again rolled atop Hannibal for the man to feel his weight there, see him arching lithe and lovely above him.

Will shivers, draws closer, rubs gently against Hannibal then harder, soft sounds escaping him as he twists himself and the older man to pleasure. It feels so good, a consummation of so much patience, so much need amidst the stubbornness.

And something else. Something colder, a fear Will feels slowly curl against his throat.

"Please," he breathes, spreading his legs to straddle Hannibal properly. "Please tell me it's not true." He makes a soft sound and swallows. "Tell me it's not true that boys hate no one as much as their lovers."

Will trembles, bites his lip as Hannibal skims his fingers down Will’s spine.

"I can't hate you. Not for something I want so much."

It is intoxicating, to feel Will move in this way - to watch the difference in their bodies, their size, as they brush against each other with twists of their hips. And so entranced, Hannibal blinks in an instant of surprise at the sudden change in tone, the tremors that no longer feel drawn from need and want but instead bloom from apprehension.

Fear.

Hannibal raises a hand and smooths Will’s hair back from his face before hooking his hand gently around the back of his neck and bringing the boy to lay over him, an easy enough weight to settle beneath when there is so little of it to bear.

“If you do not wish to hate me, then do not.”

It is a gentle murmur, far from dismissive or cruel, a reassurance that whatever occurs is entirely in Will’s hands - this, and so much more.

Will laughs, as though the logic of it all is enough, all he needs, all that matters. He ducks his head to nuzzle the older man softly, parts his lips to kiss him again, climbing higher up his body in a gentle needy way.

"Then I will not."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will eat you whole,” rumbles Hannibal, dragging his mouth lower still, lips anointing adoration down his neck with kisses painted across his skin. “Suck the juice of pomegranates from your eager fingers.” He spreads his tongue against Will’s collarbone, closes his mouth down the boy’s chest. “Feed you olives and press my fingers through the oil shining on your lips.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you as a [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/donate) from [Kinneykid](http://kinneykid.tumblr.com/), one of our most passionate supporters! Thank you so much, darling, and we hope you enjoy!!
> 
> For the inspiration behind Hannibal’s tattoos - and a glimpse at what 5th century BC tattoos looked like - check out [these](http://siberiantimes.com/upload/information_system_39/4/1/1/item_411/information_items_411.jpg) [links](http://siberiantimes.com/PICTURES/FEATURES/CULTURE/PRINCESS-UKOK/Princess%20Ukok,%20tattoos%20on%20her%20shoulder.jpg) [here](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zLxUzcsGJic/UDKr8RriHAI/AAAAAAAACpY/9JOdCVJHhXk/s1600/TattoosCentral%2BA.jpg)!

“Then I will not.”

With a sigh, Hannibal catches Will’s face in his hands and brings their lips to slide warmly together, teeth catching the boy’s soft bottom lip before even that gentle tease is kissed away. The weightlessness of his own relief is a revelation, and it is only by his own resistance that he stops from embracing Will so tightly that both are left breathless.

He would not force himself on the boy, if he would be loathed for his advances.

He would not be thought as more barbaric than he already is by so many.

Years of relative solitude, but for rare sojourns to the city brothels. Years of knowing that for all his accolades and accords, no permission was granted for him to take a wife. Years of waiting, alone, bound to this country with no more to do than wait for war, so that the city that holds him in keeping can unleash him again.

Trusted with the sons of Athens, but never with her daughters.

Hannibal tucks his nose against the boy's throat and draws a deep breath, chasing the sweet smell of his skin with a heated kiss, and groaning low in response when the boy laughs softly above him.

It is dizzying.

Carefully he takes Will’s fingers where they curl against his chest, and with eyes focused only on the blue ones that regard him from so wonderfully near, he slips Will’s hand lower, across his belly, to press between his legs before Hannibal turns his wrist and does the same to Will.

“You,” he intones softly. “You create this in me.”

Will bites his lip, palm curling gently to take Hannibal in hand and stroke, fingertips trailing where the heel of his hand leads. It's both intoxicating and entirely foreign, feeling Hannibal in his palm instead of himself, and Will parts his lips to watch even as Hannibal strokes him enough to draw a whimper.

Why did he wait so long? What use was his stubbornness for all these months, now wasted, when he could have had this?

"Good," he sighs at last, eyes up to look at Hannibal properly, pushing up against the man’s chest so he can almost loom over Hannibal as he strokes, as he spreads his legs pleasurably for Hannibal in turn to touch him. "Let me also be the one to relieve you."

Sighing against Will’s mouth at the words, he arches up into the touch, attention darting downward to watch the boy touch him. Elegant fingers - his hands so much smaller than Hannibal’s own - wrap around him to stroke in a broken rhythm, beautiful in his inexpertise, in his enthusiasm to make Hannibal moan for him.

He does, squeezing softly against the dark scarlet head of Hannibal’s cock, and Hannibal returns the motion in kind. Will blinks, mouth open and gasping breathless, when calloused, strong fingers touch him so warmly along his pulsing length, and drag from him a drip of clear slick. Hannibal skims a finger through it and brings it to his lips, eyes rolling closed at the primal taste of his boy, and he reaches down again to grasp them both in one hand and stroke them together, soft skin rubbing with friction, one and the same and yet in size and girth so vastly different.

Hannibal rumbles against Will’s ear, his free hand tightened to tug lightly at Will’s curls and bend their mouths together, lips brushing as he speaks with a faint grin. “So, peacemaker - do you prefer the front, or the rear?”

Will merely whimpers against him, caught up so much in the shift and motion between them that it takes a moment for him to understand and respond. Lips parted and eyes wider, blushing deep again as he considers, feels his heart hammer faster.

Hannibal is large, enough for both of his small hands to enclose, and the very thought of such a penetration seems impossible to Will. But he wants it. He needs Hannibal this way, needs to show him he is fearless in this, too.

He soft kiss to Hannibal's lips and Will twists just gently until Hannibal lets him free. Will slips from atop the man, knees against the mattress, and trembles, nervous, inexperienced, trying so hard to appear better and seeing enough to know that to Hannibal he is the world, this way.

Without a word, Will sets his knees wider apart, arches his back as he had so languidly in the bath, so many months before, and lets his eyes close to half mast in anticipation of the touches to come. But what he feels, to his surprise, are Hannibal's palms on either side of his thighs, stroking the insides of them before curling over the outside and gently pushing his legs together. Will obeys the instruction, finds his legs closed tight, knees together, and delighting in the harsh exhale of Hannibal's behind him.

Hannibal cannot fathom how often he has seen the boy like this in his mind, from their first meeting when he arched his back with a sly look and let water cascade provocative and decadent down his skinny body, and countless times beyond. Sometimes, as Hannibal touches himself at the end of a day together, he sees Will as coy, eyes flashing in knowing amusement over what he does to the man. Others, as he is now - a jejune blush blooming hot across his cheeks, lips parted in guileless curiosity.

He is even more beautiful this way than Hannibal had imagined, and they share a slight smile - Will permissive, and Hannibal accepting of it - before he traces his fingertips softly up the cleft where Will’s thighs press together.

“Tightly,” he murmurs, near enough that the warmth of his words can be felt against Will’s soft skin, before Hannibal follows the path his fingers forged with a long swipe of his tongue.

Will’s lips part, a breath shuddering from him, and he arches his back further without thinking. The touch is so intimate, so unusual. Will shivers when Hannibal does it again, clenches his thighs together as Hannibal had asked.

The gentle tending continues until Will’s knees feel weak, until his body trembles over and over with pleasant sensation, until he is so hard between his legs as to be humiliating.

"Hannibal," Will groans, voice lifting before he bites his lip to quiet himself. He brings one hand down between his legs and presses down, trying to hold his own pleasure at bay before Hannibal has even touched him. "Please..."

Drawing a breath as he forces himself to relent - although the idea of simply teasing the boy to senselessness is wholly tempting - Hannibal rises up onto his knees, and with a palmful of spit, slicks himself unhurried while watching Will’s arm shift in tenuous tugs against himself, enough to feel pleasure but not enough to overstimulate more than he already has been.

He commits to memory, this moment in which they are so near and yet untouching, bodies alive with anticipation to know what they have both stubbornly resisted for so long.

Holding his length heavy in his hand, he shifts forward to lay across the boy’s back. Will’s breath draws sharp in fear, awaiting the pain of the man attempting to fill him, but Hannibal runs a hand soothing up and down his belly.

“Breathe,” he tells him, and there is a quiet delight in realizing what Will is expecting, and what is actually to come.

He nestles Will’s legs beneath his own, and as their hips draw nearer Hannibal slips his cock - dense, hot - between Will’s slick, soft thighs. The boy’s muscles twitch at the newness of the sensation, the hot girth that slips between them, and a groan tumbles from Hannibal’s lips against Will’s shoulder as he doubles over him, chest hair tickling the boy’s back.

It is a gentle movement, for the hunger Will can feel barely held at bay in Hannibal’s body, a languid rocking forward and back, several times slowly to find a pace that does not startle Will, nor bring Hannibal to his release too quickly.

It is exquisitely foreign, and Will moans softly at the gentleness with which Hannibal treats him, he can feel his stroke, long, hot, between his thighs, behind his balls.

It feels so _good_.

"Gods," Will licks his lips and parts them, shivering, arching harder back against Hannibal. "More, please more."

His toes curl as Will ducks his head, as he feels Hannibal groan, laugh against him, warm breath tickling his shoulders, against the back of his neck, nuzzling into the soft curls there. Will feels entirely adored, worshiped, wanted. It makes him blush, heat down his cheeks and neck, over his chest.

Fingers curl in Will’s hair and he arches his neck, allows the motion, moans when Hannibal kisses against him there.

Tucking a strong arm around Will’s waist, Hannibal ruts harder between the boy’s legs, shudders each time his cock slides through to the other side of them, groans low when he draws it back. Having this boy, taking him, making him Hannibal’s own, he murmurs words in the rough tongue Will has only heard few times until now, but can guess as to the meaning from the coarse pleasure that fills them.

Hannibal lets his fingers slip from Will’s hair to instead grasp the boy’s jaw in his hand. He tilts his head and thrills at the high, sweet sound that Will makes in response, at the way his body curves beneath Hannibal’s own, and brings their mouths together, a messy, needy kiss against the corner of Will’s lips.

It is more than Hannibal might have expected, to have someone in this way, without pressing inside of them, without their hands or mouths around him. He has had his way with many, but never in this foreign manner, has seen it happen in the barracks and ruminated at length about the frustration such an act must incur, presuming it to be wholly unsatisfying.

Hannibal can remember few times in his life that he has been so overwhelmingly pleased to be so wrong.

His kiss taken, the sensation of the boy’s lips still tingling bright against his own, Hannibal slips his hand lower. Down Will’s throat that works on a swallow beneath his touch, further still to his chest, his belly, until he finds the boy’s hand wrapped around his length and replaces it with his own.

Though hard, hot, twitching beneath his hand, Hannibal growls in raw delight at the size of it compared to his own, smaller but no less eager, and surrounds it in skilled, rough fingers to stroke the boy with fervor.

"Oh," Will gasps, grasps the blankets, pulls them taut, "oh god."

It is suddenly much harder to keep his composure, much harder to stay still when all he wants is to curl against Hannibal, under him, bend his back, straighten it, legs together, spread as far apart as he possibly can...

"Hannibal, god, I... please, I... oh -"

He's shaking, writhing, a whimpery tiny thing against the man behind him, finally begging for things without a word and soft needy sounds instead.

Hannibal’s arm tightens around him to keep the boy held against him, chest to his back to feel every breath panting and every plea and whimper that gasps from his lips. He curls his hand over the head of the boy’s cock, dampens his palm in the slickness gathered beaded there, and strokes it back down again, slipping the soft skin lower, higher, in time with the thrusts of his own hips that dig deep into the boy’s backside.

Head ducked against Will’s back, Hannibal’s lips part with the weight of his own drive, sharp bucking motions that bring the boy’s smaller cock into contact with his own. He sets his other hand against Will’s hip, squeezes, and swears under his breath when Will tightens his thighs harder still.

“My peacemaker,” breathes Hannibal kissing, biting softly, sucking Will’s skin where his mouth meets it, sinking heavier when Will’s back arches deeper still beneath him.

Will’s hands slip, enough to drop him to his elbows, to allow him to bury his face against the pillows and fill those, instead, with his soft cries and sobs of need. The change in angle drives a curse from Hannibal, pleased, desirous, and Will’s body trembles, flits from hot to cold and back, until he cums, hot and quick against Hannibal’s hand, moaning his pleasure.

It is entirely different to how Will finds his own release in bed, with just his hands and his thoughts to bring him to completion. Here, he has the man entirely over him, covering Will’s body with his own, encouraging his hips higher, his back to bend.

All the while with gentle touches, little kisses, words breathed against Will that are Greek and foreign both that all send him to immense pleasure, knowing he is so adored, so wanted, the cause of this heat and madness in his master.

"Yours," Will breathes, swallowing thickly and getting his hands under himself again. His cheeks are scarlet with embarrassment, spent already after so short a time, but he finds Hannibal is far from displeased, almost delighted at Will’s lack of control in this.

From the sound Hannibal makes in response to his words, Will knows that the reverse is just as true. A long, aching moan, to feel his boy beneath him and hear that his boy relishes it, wants to be there, wants to be with _him_ forces a choked snarl from the man.

“Yes,” he breathes, again and again, the bed rattling beneath them as he has his boy - his Will - with abandon. Will’s release drips between his fingers, and Hannibal reaches back to wet himself further with it, the heat and slickness intoxicating, knowing from whom it comes, how.

It means everything.

Breathless sounds, timed with each thrust between the boy’s legs until finally his sounds, his movements cease entirely as he jerks his hips against Will one last time, and shoves his cock _down_. Wrapped entirely between Will’s thighs and held in place by Hannibal’s hand, white heat spills in pulsing streaks between his legs, and for long moments Hannibal is senseless with relief, all unsteady hands and sure words sworn in myriad languages.

Will just shakes, a continuous tremor before he laughs, a weak and delighted thing, utterly relieved. He drops back to his elbows, hips in the air for Hannibal to gently stroke over the skin there, down lower to Will’s thighs, up higher to his ribs, against his shoulders.

"I can barely catch my breath," Will gasps, a languid arch, a twist, as he is allowed to rest back on the bed. He bends, moans in sleepy pleasure before turning to wrap his heavy limbs around Hannibal entirely, pull him down to kiss.

Now he spreads his knees for him, messy and slick with both of their release, grins when Hannibal settles between them.

They are quiet for a moment, but for the sound of their own pulses slowing in time together, and the soft noises of the kisses shared between them. Hannibal rests an elbow alongside Will, curling his arm around to stroke the boy’s hair, before turning his face lightly aside with a nuzzle, lips pressing to his cheek.

“Worth the wait,” Hannibal finally murmurs with a fleeting grin. “Although I will not be held responsible for what happens now. In the hallway, the study. In the stable. The fields.”

His fingers tease up the still-trembling curve of Will’s thigh, and he lets his weight ease into the boy as Will’s leg hooks over his hip.

“So then - do you hate me?” asks Hannibal, jesting in tone but not in expression, some strain of distant worry still gathered beneath his eyes.

Will bites his lip, brings one hand back over Hannibal’s back, his other forward to curl in the hair on his chest. With a smile he shakes his head.

"No."

And it's true. The revelation is gentle, warming, and Will smiles wider before arching beneath Hannibal in a pleased, relaxed motion. He brings his other leg up to hook over Hannibal’s hip as well.

"Will you take supper with me?" he asks, soft, hand slipping up to cup Hannibal's cheek. "From me? From my fingers? From against my skin?"

Will’s eyes narrow in mischief.

"Will you feed it to me as I drape across your lap, _erastes_?" he purrs.

The long study given to the boy beneath him, Hannibal’s eyes made even darker by the widening of his pupils, and the crushing kiss he takes from Will’s lips is answer enough to all his questions. Inquiries and promises alike, temptations and revelations to be discovered between them, to experience every inch of this boy’s pleasure and his own in every way imaginable.

“I will eat you whole,” rumbles Hannibal, dragging his mouth lower still, lips anointing adoration down his neck with kisses painted across his skin. “Suck the juice of pomegranates from your eager fingers.” He spreads his tongue against Will’s collarbone, closes his mouth down the boy’s chest. “Feed you olives and press my fingers through the oil shining on your lips.” Lower again to where he can taste the smeared aftermath of their own exaltations still salty against Will’s stomach, nuzzling the fine hairs that trail down his belly.

With a rough sigh Hannibal lays back alongside Will again, drawing the boy almost too tight against him, watching his eyes from near enough that their noses brush.

“Perhaps we should simply have our meal in bed,” he murmurs. “I do not wish to see you leave it.”

Will grins, contented, _happy_ , and tilts his head enough to gently kiss Hannibal once more.

"In bed, then,” he agrees, adjusting enough to rest warm in the embrace holding him so close. He sighs, lets his eyes close, just to feel the comfort, the softness between them, entirely affectionate together. When he opens his eyes again, Will slides his fingers over the designs on Hannibal's chest again, following them with a fingertip before lifting it free to start on another, with another finger. Almost like playing an instrument.

"Will you allow me to bring supper to bed?" he asks, smiling, "Allow me to leave it long enough for that?"

Hannibal’s brow furrows at the question, the same stern sound he makes when Will asks to change weapons in training, an unpromising answer perched on the man’s tongue.

“Only if you go as you are,” he decides. “So that I may watch you leave,” he adds, broad hands grasping Will’s backside in a firm squeeze, before one traces over his hip and teasing fingertips trail along his softened length again, surrounding it warmly in his palm. “And then watch you return to me, just so.”

Will’s cheeks flood with color. But as with the moments when he finds himself standing off against Hannibal on the field, or in a decision in their lessons, his eyes narrow further and he slowly extricates himself from the strong arms holding him close.

He stumbles gently, regains his balance and strokes a hand through his hair, arching with a soft groan before obeying Hannibal's request, bending unnecessarily to open the door before walking beyond.

In the kitchen, Hannibal's slave barely gives him a glance, though Will’s hands shift almost immediately to cover himself before he realizes the futility of the action.

"The general wishes to take his supper in bed," Will tells her, voice wavering enough to have her quirk her lips at him. She blinks, regarding the boy before her, before gesturing to the table for him to make his selection.

"Shall I bring him wine?" she asks, casual, careful. Will bites his lip and shakes his head.

"I will... I can bring it. Thank you. I -" Whatever was on his mind, Will does not voice. Just ducks his head to regard their choice on the table, collecting enough for two on one plate. Breads and olives and cheese, fish again, hot and freshly caught. Vegetable mash, spiced and aromatic.

Will accepts the pitcher of wine when it is offered him, and does not take up cups.

When he returns to Hannibal it is seemingly without a care for his bareness, a coy twist of lips as he kicks the door gently closed behind him. Hips swaying, Will returns to bed, sets the pitcher to the small table before climbing to straddle Hannibal in bed. Slim fingers take up and olive and Will bites it in half with a smirk.

"Should I make you beg for your dinner?" he muses, smiling at the jest.

Hannibal’s eyes close comfortably with the boy sitting heavy on his stomach again, but a brow raises at the question, hands skimming up Will’s stomach, back down again in languid strokes.

“Should I send you out to finish your chores?” he responds, before adding bemused. “As you are?”

He opens his eyes again just in time to see the boy’s impish grin appear and watch as he settles deeper, legs spread to either side of Hannibal’s waist. Chin lifting, he accepts the next olive offered, lips closing softly around Will’s fingers to draw the savory oil from them, and after a moment more he produces the pit between his teeth, neatly extracted by Will and set aside.

“You will spoil me,” suggests Hannibal. “I will become your fat general, lazing about with a beautiful boy to feed me and bear my cup.” His eyes drift towards the pitcher, but in fact there are no cups to be found, and he hums a little.

Will bites the corner of his lip and considers.

"You shall not grow fat," he decides, "you train for pleasure and push me to do the same. But I can be your Ganymede all the same." Will bends, careful with their plate, to kiss Hannibal once more. A gentle thing. "And you will spoil me. And I shall let you." Fingers splay through the warm hair on Hannibal’s chest and Will kisses him again.

Without losing the ebb and flow of their kiss, mouths meeting time and again, Hannibal takes the platter from the boy and holds it steady as he pushes himself to sit up, and lean back against the wall. Lithe legs curl around his waist and Hannibal folds his own beneath Will, for the boy to sink easily into his lap.

The tray finds its place on the bed beside them, and Hannibal takes up a fig from it, chin lifting as he watches Will take it between his teeth and curl his lips around it.

“You shall _let_ me spoil you?” he muses. “As though you have been resistant to it, somehow, as though you disdain it. A Spartan in councillor’s clothing,” teases the man, tasting the sweetness of the fruit on his lips, as Will’s hands come to rest against his chest again and his fingertips press against the scars there.

“You like them,” Hannibal notes softly.

"I like them," Will agrees, no teasing now, just gentle and warm. "They are a story of your life, a proof of it." Will licks his lips. "I have none. I have not yet lived one."

Will seeks with small fingers for a piece of fish, feeds it to Hannibal, reaches for one to taste himself. It is a pleasant dinner, gentle, and it almost does not matter that they are bared, that they have shared each other so much already.

Not until Hannibal draws damp fingers over Will’s chest and chases the touch with his lips.

“You will take your marks,” Hannibal assures him, the boy’s observation still on his mind from before their bellies were full with food. “You will fall from your horse. Startle one of your hounds. Feel your fingers, your thighs harden from training, from use.” Pensive, he takes the tray and sets it on the floor beside the bed before snaring Will’s hips with his hands, and turning the boy beneath him.

He wants no more for him than that. Memories of a life lived, rather than a life nearly ended. Hand splayed against the soft swell of Will’s stomach, Hannibal kisses lower to his chest, and there he rests between Will’s legs. The boy’s heart jogs faster beneath Hannibal’s ear, and then settles again as Will touches his fingertips to the deer that bends and curls across the man’s shoulder.

And should he see war, this gentle boy, Hannibal hopes his body is scarred. It would mean that he had lived.

Will hums softly and continues his caresses, tracing the markings, running his fingers through Hannibal’s soft hair. His weight is comfortable against Will, his breathing slowing in rest.

He thinks of what this means for them. Three years of life as student and master, as soldier and general, lover and beloved.

Will feels himself relax slowly to sleep, dozing with fingers curling and uncurling in Hannibal’s hair, over his back once he no longer traces the marks deliberately.

"Will you soften the marks?" He sighs softly, "If I earn them, will you remind me what they are for?"

Hannibal knows he won’t need to, that the boy will remember every stripe he takes and be able to tell their story, just as Hannibal’s body is a record of his own. But he kisses Will’s bare chest, and lets his hand linger over his heart to feel it beating strong beneath.

“With my hands, I will,” Hannibal murmurs softly. “With my lips. I will know them all as I know you now without them.”

He huffs a soft laugh against Will’s smooth skin and settles again.

“Now you have me speaking poetry, peacemaker,” he intones, and caresses the inside of Will’s thigh the with the backs of his fingers. “Now blow out the lamp and let me speak it to you without words.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I would delight in learning your scars by light of early morning."
> 
> Hannibal chases another kiss, delighting - although he growls - when he is denied again. He turns and unhurried returns Will to the bed from which he escaped, dumping him back onto it unceremoniously and following, between his legs, hands on either side of him. “There are many,” cautions Hannibal, although his eyes draw up in amusement. “Are you so clever that you have time to learn them all, in such short time?"
> 
> Will considers, grinning. "Teach me of five a day,” he asks him, eyes narrowing. "And with them, five ways I can repay the pain you suffered with pleasure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days in a row?? You bet, and you can thank [thellou](http://thellou.tumblr.com/) for the [commission](http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/donate) that made it happen! Enjoy, lovely, and thank you again for your incredible support!!

Will wakes early, the cock has not yet crowed, the sky yet dark on the horizon. Against him, Hannibal's arms rest heavy, protective and possessive both, and so comforting that Will almost curls back to sleep without a thought. But something lingers on his mind, tugs against his subconscious and keeps him awake.

There are no sounds, yet, in the house, the slaves not yet awake themselves to begin the morning chores. The animals unbothered by the night sleep on. Only Will stirs, now, unable to keep a smile off his face, unable to stop drawing his hand soft over Hannibal’s, splaying his fingers against the older man’s. 

He lets his eyes take in the room properly, now that he is able to at his leisure. It is sparsely furnished, the large bed and small table the only truly worthy items of note. And yet something else holds its own within the space, tall as Hannibal himself, hidden beneath the shadows of the room far enough from the bed for Will to have missed it the night before, in such a corner as to not be seen from the door.

Will carefully extricates himself, bites his lip at Hannibal's grunt of displeasure, waiting to see if the man would wake - he does not - before making his way on tiptoes to examine this strange shadow further.

It manifests to familiar shapes as Will approaches and he smiles as he realizes what it is. Hannibal's panoply, in all its glory and majesty; and it is certainly that, to Will, who cannot take his eyes off of it.

The cuirass is bronze, once beautiful, etched with spirals to mimic the shape of the body beneath it. They are disrupted in their patterns where the armor was hammered back to wholeness, and freshly oiled leather is slicked through to join the shoulders. Above it on the stand rests a helmet, crested, shaped to curl against the cheeks and down nose. And across it all it all rests the familiar scarlet cloak, woven with golden laurels, soft beneath Will’s careful fingers.

He stretches them wide, the bright leaves roughly textured beneath his fingers, and gently pushes the chlamys signifying Hannibal’s service out of the way to reach the metal beneath.

It isn’t hard to imagine Hannibal in it - it seems so natural, a better fit for the man than the ivory drapes of cloth that lay soft against him every day. Will traces the spirals etched where Hannibal’s chest would be beneath it, spreads his palm down over the bronze that girded his stomach, follows the remains of a furrow run sharply along the side that draws Will’s brows in. A glancing blow, deflected, just where Hannibal had struck the boy softly in practice, and told him how poisonously slow his death would be if caught there with a spear or blade.

Stretching onto his toes, his curiosity settles on the helmet. He taps against the nose piece, imagines Hannibal’s dark eyes beneath it, the man’s harsh jaw held behind the low sweeps of painted bronze. Biting his lip, he lifts it very carefully, feeling it heavy against his fingers as he turns it over and finally lowers the helmet over his own head - too large for him yet.

Struck by the rich, musky scent that fills his nose - metal and sweat, old leather well-worn - he cannot imagine having to have it press against him as he walked into battle, pushed by a shield, pushing his own.

He straightens his shoulders, closes his eyes, almost hears the slow onset of a march, around him, before him, behind. Will bites his lip, imagines that if he looks up he would see the sun, filtered through light gray clouds, down he would see the mud through which he walks.

It is an incredibly heavy helmet, already putting strain on his neck, but Will keeps his posture, forces himself to imagine that such a gift is bestowed upon him, for his bravery, his skill...

Will’s eyes open and he sighs, fingers careful around the piece against his nose, tracing it as he had the face usually beneath it, the night before. He wonders if Hannibal would wear it for him. Let him tie the laces of the cuirass, slide his helmet on, and then - he considers with a grin - remove them once he’s done looking at him.

The thoughts are enough that - as if he’d stood any chance to do so - he doesn’t hear or see the movement of Hannibal stepping nearer to him on catfeet. Will’s fingers latch against the curves that would - no, have - protected Hannibal’s cheeks and Hannibal slips an arm around Will’s waist as soon as his arms are up, tugging the boy back against him.

“A little early to train, even for you,” he murmurs, and wraps his other arm around just as snugly, amused by the press of cool bronze against his cheek.

Will makes a soft sound of surprise, heart beating quick against Hannibal’s hands where he holds him. Will brings a hand up to curl around Hannibal's wrist, to hold him close. He cannot see the man, his peripheral vision cut off entirely, but he can feel the hard lines of his body against his back. Can feel how, already, Hannibal is hard for him as he slots their hips together.

"I was imagining you wearing this and nothing else at all,” he replies, voice quiet in the dark pre-dawn.

A deep sound of approval rumbles from the man, vibrates hunger against Will’s back.

“As you are now?”

Hannibal needs not see the boy’s blush to know it’s there, and with gentle hands removes the helmet from him, to place it back atop the rack.

“You keep it in your room,” Will notes, leaning back into Hannibal as they were before, with a pleased little noise as Hannibal takes him in his arms again.

“One never knows.”

Touching low across Will’s stomach, Hannibal cups a hand between the boy’s legs and brings the other to frame with firm fingers his jaw, arching Will back until they can regard each other, albeit upside-down.

“Let me greet you,” Hannibal murmurs, “before dawn has had her chance to do so first.”

As they are, Hannibal leans low to kiss the boy, an awkward kiss but no less warm for the position, lips sliding as comfortably together as their bodies seem to fit, and a smile plays across Hannibal’s mouth as he does.

Will’s body feels too hot, too small for the emotions it contains. He brings a hand up to curl gently in Hannibal’s hair, smiles when they part for breath. 

"Good morning," he sighs, blinking his eyes open and smiling wider, seeing Hannibal there. It feels comfortable, unlike the greetings Will had for so long forced himself to make awkward, jittery, rigid.

Not this.

Not now.

He practically melts against Hannibal with a soft sigh, arches his hips forward to feel the rough hand cupping him, back to feel the man hard behind him.

Then he turns his eyes to the armor once more and reaches out to draw his fingers over the marks there.

"It wears scars, just as you,” he says.

Hannibal lifts his eyes to watch Will’s hand against the armor - delicate, still, pale and lovely pressed to unyielding bronze - before demuring them again in favor of tucking his face into the crook of Will’s neck and nuzzling warmly there.

“It wears them in place of me,” corrects Hannibal. “I would be several times dead without it.” A flicker of frustration, perhaps, in his words, but it eases away before Will has time to consider it overmuch. “A gift from your father. It has served me well, and so I hope to do for him in turn.”

He skims his hand along Will’s outstretched arm, twines their fingers together to follow the movement of Will’s touch along the cuirass.

“You will have one, as well,” he murmurs. “A gift from me, when you are ready for it.”

_When our time together is over._

The thought strikes Hannibal as if it were a blow and he grasps Will’s fingers to turn the boy in his arms and without warning, lift him from his feet, one arm tucked beneath his legs, the other around his back.

“Good morning,” he finally says in return, eyes alighting to watch Will bright above him, as another gentle smile upturns his lips. “How shall we spend it? Before hounds and horses and lessons call us away.”

Will squirms, delighting in how easily Hannibal lifts him, how close he holds him like this. He takes his time curling his legs around Hannibal’s waist, deliberately arching and turning until he settles, and feels Hannibal harder against his thigh.

"It is not true morning yet, for some hours still our time is entirely our own." He leans in to kiss Hannibal gently. "No hounds.” Another kiss. "No horses." Another. "No poetry or swords or spears."

He grins at the implication, bites his lip and pulls back just enough for Hannibal not to snare a kiss from him quickly.

"I would delight in learning your scars by light of early morning."

Hannibal chases another kiss, delighting - although he growls - when he is denied again. He turns and unhurried returns Will to the bed from which he escaped, dumping him back onto it unceremoniously and following, between his legs, hands on either side of him. “There are many,” cautions Hannibal, although his eyes draw up in amusement. “Are you so clever that you have time to learn them all, in such short time?"

Will considers, grinning. "Teach me of five a day,” he asks him, eyes narrowing. "And with them, five ways I can repay the pain you suffered with pleasure."

“Five?” echoes Hannibal, who does not resist dragging the length of his body in a slow rut against Will’s when he leans low to kiss him. “Ambitious boy. I admire your courage.”

With a sigh, Hannibal stretches almost feline over Will, allowing their lengths to bump softly together again before he rolls to lay on his back beside the boy instead, arms comfortably outstretched.

Even languid and limber as he is now, he is fierce, the muscles that define his form are laid bare, painted in ink and ash and riven with the signs of combat. Will knows by looking at him that he’s felt but a fraction of the strength and speed honed in Hannibal’s battle-worn body, and that to see him on the field - in his panoply, astride his horse with weapons at the ready - he would be a terrifying sight.

All the more remarkable, then, to see the effect that he has on the man, the dark skin of his cock stretched tight where his length lies hard against his leg. And more pleasing still when Hannibal curls his fingers into fists only to stretch sleepily, eyes closing as he gives himself over to the boy’s gentle touch.

Subdued.

Content.

For Will alone.

“Where to begin?” Hannibal teases softly, feeling Will’s hesitation.

Will considers, eyes narrowing in pleasure, before he lets his fingers linger over a mark just beneath Hannibal’s collarbone, a thin scar, and light against his ruddy skin.

"This,” he says.

Beneath him, Hannibal adjusts, brings a hand to trace the mark as though to remind himself, remember the moment when blood had welled there, tiny bubbles of red until they merged to drip thick down his skin.

"Practice,” he says, "with an angry tutor. I was rewarded for my mistakes with the sword point, a tally against skin so I would learn." Hannibal's soft tone implies what he does not say, what he does not have to. Will knows he learned. Will knows that though his lessons may not be so cruel, he will learn as well.

"And this?" Another, by his shoulder, like a crescent moon.

Hannibal catches Will’s hand gently in his own and kisses the fingertips, pulling Will closer as he speaks.

"That I did to myself,” he admits, lips quirking in amusement. "When I climbed above a bramble bush and lost my balance into it."

Will laughs.

"A graceful general." He brings his eyes up to watch Hannibal closer. "Such battles you have scars from."

"All experiences are battles, Will. All life earns you scars. None ever lesser than another. These scars have built me, because I endured them I have been spared others, deeper, crueler, later. These are as honorable to me as those that mark the war."

Will considers the words, the gentle wisdom within them, before bending his head in supplication to worship the scar with his lips, to trace it with his tongue.

Hannibal sinks his hand through Will’s hair, relishes the way the curls wrap around his fingers, tugged straight as he strokes through it and bouncing back into place. His mouth is warm - hot, almost - in the early morning chill, but Hannibal makes no move to clutch the boy against himself, content to simply let himself be explored.

Kisses drift down Hannibal’s arm, his wrist held in Will’s hands and fingers brought to his mouth. He touches his lips softly to them, before - with a narrow-eyed look of delight - he teases the tip of his tongue against one, and draws it in. Pressing the pad of his finger against Will’s tongue, and pushing his finger a little deeper into the clever mouth that surrounds it, Hannibal allows a shiver to raise pinpricks across his bare skin, watching the boy with hooded eyes.

He slides it slowly free and kisses the back of Hannibal’s hand, up to his knuckles, and feeling the smoothness of the skin beneath his lips, Will asks, “Here?”

A laugh, low. “Many things. Scraped against walls while teaching stubborn horses. Battered against the inside of my shield until they were bloody.” He curls his fingers around Will’s hand and hums as the boy lavishes kisses across the pale scars. “Fighting, many times, when pushed to do so.”

Will remembers, delights in the idea of Hannibal fighting someone and winning without effort, in the idea that he only does it when driven to it by necessity, not because violence is his passion and his pleasure.

For long moments Will merely kisses skin, seeking blind with just his lips until he finds a raised scar, wide and large, against Hannibal’s side, bent in such a way as to follow parallel the curve of a tail of a creature Will can’t name. It looks like a shadow of a motion, a second skin shed by the creature.

“This one,” Will murmurs, lifts his eyes to look at Hannibal with a smile.

Hannibal hums, sucking in his stomach on reflex from the gently tickling feeling of Will against the sensitive skin. One hand he tucks behind his head, stretching his body for the boy above him to explore with soft sighs and gentle fingers. The other he settles against Will’s back, sliding his fingers over his spine and back up again in a gentle massage.

“A spear skimmed past me,” he says. “I did not see the wound until the heat of the blood turned to cool and dried against my skin.”

“It didn’t hurt?” Will asks, eyes widening a little.

Hannibal tilts his head, meeting the boy’s gaze even as Will’s tongue teases along the mark. The corners of his eyes lift in amusement, before he closes them contentedly.

“No,” comes the answer. “Some time after, perhaps, but in the moment I was only aware that I had not been impaled. The mind sings in battle, like the humming of an aulos, droning over notions of pain or fear. To not let that drive you is to falter. Had I felt it, I may have stopped - a hesitation long enough to allow him another chance.”

His jaw works a little before easing again, and he resumes the gentle rubbing of Will’s back from where his hand had stilled.

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes,” Hannibal responds with a slight smile. “I imagine so. Though there were many, it is hard to say exactly, but I struck, and he did not have strength enough to do the same again.”

Will blinks at him, heart beating faster at merely hearing the story, imagining the power such a blow would have taken, imagining how strong Hannibal must be to twist through it, survive, and take his vengeance on the man who had tried.

“Is courage gained?” he asks softly, and moves to rest against Hannibal’s chest again, hands folded softly against it. “I cannot imagine such things without quivering in fear.”

Hannibal’s smile grows fonder, and he finds his fingers unfurling the soft curls again, stroking them from Will’s face.

“You underestimate the strength within you already,” he assures the boy. “You underestimate the simple victories you hold every day. You will gain the courage that you fear you do not have. You will find it.”

Will feels himself smile at the words, spoken gently but without a hint of pity, without any sign that the man was patronizing him for his own amusement. He is growing stronger with the sword. He will grow stronger still with his courage.

“Will you choose a fifth?” Hannibal asks him, blinking at Will where he lies. Will blinks back, settles more comfortably where he is. After a moment he levers himself up a little higher, ducks his head, and presses his teeth against the soft hollow of Hannibal’s collarbone. His lips settle around them and he sucks, hard enough to draw a hiss from Hannibal but no retaliation, and when he lifts his head, a bright mark, bruised, where he had been. Languidly Will licks against it before regarding Hannibal from behind hooded lids.

“This one,” he asks.

The faint smile that had lingered long on Hannibal’s lips splits into a grin, nearly a laugh, before he finally catches Will in his arms and rolls to hold the boy beneath himself now, instead. The wriggling adjustments, the breathless laughter tease a purring pleasure from Hannibal and he kisses Will until Will’s fingers rest against his cheeks, and they part only to breathe.

“That,” Hannibal murmurs in a dire tone, “is an exciting story. A most fierce battle, between unyielding opponents, one very strong, and one very clever, both entirely too stubborn to bend to the other.”

He runs his hands along Will’s arms, until he pins both wrists gently beneath one hand, and can return the other to rubbing firm strokes along the boy’s squirming body.

“Squared off against each other, neither willing to step first, until by some sudden movement of Fate’s hand both did, at once,” he continues, voice low, as if telling myths of gods and monsters. “And this is the mark left, when both finally learned the measure of the other.” A pause, considering, and another soft smile tucked against Will’s chest where Hannibal nuzzles into a soft kiss. “A happy ending, this one, though yet unfolding.”

Will bites his lip and arches. The sky outside still dark, though the feeling of dawn is near it, something lightening, something softening to make it so. He turns his wrists gently in the grip against them but does not struggle. Instead he just watches Hannibal above him, smile soft against his lips, body warm beneath him as he slowly shifts one knee then the other to spread and slide up around Hannibal.

“Five scars,” he murmurs, licks his lips. “Five pleasures?”

It’s a pleasant sort of irony when Hannibal realizes, regarding the rosy-cheeked youth beneath him, how much more he knows of combat and war than of peace and pleasure. Though no stranger to the gentler possibilities of the body, it has always been a somewhat functional pursuit to him - something that needs tending to but not worth a great deal of attention beyond that, less pressing in compare to a well-cooked meal, and less substantial. His girth and size and strangeness - the tattoos he bears always a point of interest - had won him some favor with certain adventurous whores, but what he knows from sharing time with them hardly applies here.

He rubs a hand across the boy’s bare, hairless chest and chases it with his lips.

“Shall I show you directly, then?” asks Hannibal, eyes darting upward to watch Will’s lip snare between his teeth, and widen in a grin as he nods.

An exploration for both, then, equally unfamiliar with the feel of another man - or boy - against them in this way. Hannibal dips into the curve of Will’s neck, kissing softly up to his ear, to catch it between his teeth before sucking lightly.

“One,” he whispers, and the breath is enough to send a cascade of shivers down Will’s spine.

It’s pleasant, and something so simple that Will would not have considered. The sensitive skin of his earlobe, behind it, the shivers that skitter pleasantly over Will’s skin until he makes a soft sound, pleased and warm, like a purr.

He shifts against Hannibal how he can, the way he’s held, knees drawing higher and hands twisting more languidly in Hannibal’s rough palm. It’s delightful being held this way and Will arches higher, back in a curve off the bed, head back against the pillows.

He doesn’t think of how he will have to do chores when the dawn comes, how he will have to keep himself from simply wrapping his arms around Hannibal when they practice on the training field later in the day, or go riding together towards evening.

He doesn’t think on it because he doesn’t want to leave this bed, he wants to stay here, close, like this, for as long as they can, and then longer still.

Will grins as Hannibal kisses his way to his throat, lower still to his chest, tongue leaving cooling traces against the skin there before it moves to circle a nipple, just a bare lick, gentle turns around and around the little nub until it hardens, until Will is biting his lip and arching up higher. Then Hannibal obliges him, presses his lips around it to kiss, draw the velvet-rough of his tongue over it fully until Will is making soft breathless sounds against him.

“Two?” he whispers.

“Two,” agrees Hannibal, releasing Will’s wrist to wrap his hands against his waist instead. He kisses across to the boy’s other nipple - already hardened in anticipation - and draws it between his lips, sucking lightly, teasing with his teeth, until Will tugs Hannibal’s hair to lift his head, his entire body trembling and alight with sensation.

Breathless overstimulation, hips rolling against the air, against Hannibal’s belly, Will writhes delighted and watches as Hannibal relents in his ministrations to instead slip lower, lower. He grasps Will’s legs and slides his hands behind the boy’s knees, pushing them up to bare him, to spread him wide.

The weak noise of alarm snaps Hannibal’s attention to the flushed lips that unfurl to make it, and his length - aching now - stirs in kind.

“Courage,” he murmurs, kissing Will’s ankle and sliding lower, settling across his own stomach - allowing the pleasure of some small friction where he can press his hips into the bed - and lowering his head to Will’s thigh. Open-mouthed kisses, the swipe of his tongue, draw up the taste of sweat and semen there and lower he goes, until just in the join of Will’s leg - fine twists of dark hair against his skin, Will’s cock twitching alongside his cheek - he kisses, sucks, draws the boy’s silken skin between his teeth and leaves his mark there in return.

“Oh,” Will’s toes curl, the sensation unlike the one the night before, where he had felt Hannibal entirely between his legs, rubbing and rutting and stroking there. This is entirely more intimate, feeling his lips where only fingers have ventured, feeling Hannibal nuzzle against him where he had never imagined the man’s lips to go.

He makes a weak little trembling whimper of need and exhales slowly, allowing his body to slip to relaxation where he had tensed at the foreign sensation.

It feels good, just as everything Hannibal has so far done to him. Everything has felt exquisite, had left Will entirely breathless and needy for more, greedy for it, hungry for it. It occurs to him that this is merely the third thing Hannibal is showing him, that they have two more, just this morning, to explore, and shivers in anticipation of it.

“I will certainly remember three,” Will sighs, biting his lip and letting it go again, cheeks dark and smile evident.

He cradles the boy’s cock in his hand, breath hot against it as he touches it against his mouth, grazing his lips softly over the tender skin, stretched taut and flushed to a beautiful rosy shade.

“There are, of course, pleasures not yet known to you that you must find a woman to perform,” Hannibal teases, before he sinks into a kiss - biting softly - against the boy’s belly. “But more yet for us, I imagine - many more things.”

Dark eyes focused on Will’s parted lips and the beautiful gasping silence that pants past them, Hannibal tightens his fingers around the head of Will’s cock. Clear fluid rises to the tip of it, slicks down the side, and he’s surprised at having to remember not to debase himself by licking it clean again. An unnatural instinct, perhaps, but one that comes readily to the surface.

Humming, he kisses the boy’s belly instead, and with a careful touch - mindful not to tug too quickly - Hannibal slowly tugs back the skin that wraps warm around the scarlet head of his length, until it is laid bare and glistening and beautiful. He strokes this way, palm wrapping warmly around the tip, thumb pressing against the slit, and watches the boy above him nearly arch from the bed.

Will makes a high sound, loud, entirely surprised at the sheer power of the sensation that nearly overcomes him. His body shivers, feels hot, cold, trembling all at once. It’s electric, something Will has never anticipated he could feel, something he has certainly never felt when he had touched himself alone.

“Hannibal -”

He lies back panting, shaking, brings a hand to his mouth to bite against the knuckle to keep the needy sounds away as he shifts his hips up in languid, desperate stretches.

“I can’t… for long…” he curses, a breathless thing and bends his neck back, lips parted to gasp in air, eyes wide, dark with pupil as the sky outside starts to show the first hint of morning light.

“You can,” Hannibal assures him, pleasure wrought across his face as he dips his head again to kiss the boy’s soft thigh, tastes the saltiness of it left by them both the night before. He touches only his fingertips across the head of Will’s cock, swollen and shining red, until he feels Will’s legs start to shake beneath his mouth, and finally relents. The soft skin is slid back up and Will’s exhalation is almost a cry of relief as he drops back onto the bed, a sheen of sweat on his brow.

He drags his hand along it and turns his eyes down to Hannibal, his face nearly as scarlet as his cock had been

“Wait until you’ve felt a woman’s mouth upon it,” Hannibal murmurs against the boy’s tender thigh before holding the backs of his knees, and rolling him onto his belly.

Stretching catlike, Will splays his arms out before him and drags himself upward to lay against his shoulders, cheek against the bed, eyes turned back over his shoulder. His legs tightly pressed together, his body bare and trembling as he presents it to Hannibal, the older man cannot help but think of the many years left before them to play this game, and so many more.

“A curious thing,” Hannibal murmurs, to himself more than Will, as he frames Will’s backside - flushed pert and pink - with his hands. He has done this before, or something very nearly like it, on a particular prostitute who long held his interest before disappearing, as so many due, when she grew round with child. With curiosity, he sets his lips to kiss the join of Will’s thighs, humming pleased when the boy reaches back to slowly touch himself.

Long kisses, tongue stroking between his legs, teeth snaring the fragile skin only to pinch, to tease, before Hannibal moves up higher still. He knows no stigma about such things, has never heard of the practice, but imagines he would have were there disdain for it. With hands braced against the boy, he spreads him wide and takes in the sight of him.

Will shivers entirely, from his toes, up his thighs and down his back, unused to being so bared and so seen, cheeks darker still for the scrutiny as his lips press together and he makes a soft sound of pleasure at being so - albeit strangely - adored. Every inch of him, every gentle stroke of skin.

“What are you doing?” he asks softly, one hand braced on the bed as he turns to look over his shoulder, eyes blinking wide, smile small but gentle. “Have I earned my fifth pleasure of you between my thighs?” he asks with a nervous laugh.

To be honest, Hannibal isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing. It’s a different view than he’s seen before when considering such possibilities, although not entirely, he notes with amusement. And as it so often does with him, curiosity wins out in the end.

“Not yet,” he murmurs.

With his thumbs he strokes from the underside of Will’s ass, up over the swell of it, to press just gingerly and spread him a little wider still, fingers pressed against the tender skin outside his opening. Will sees him lean, feels warmth breath against his exposed body, and Hannibal strokes his tongue broadly across it, once.

Will jerks, shifting forward in surprise, eyes wide and lips parted in silent shock. It’s the most unusual feeling, stranger yet than Hannibal between his thighs, than Hannibal’s hands against him in such a way as to bring him entirely to weakness. It should be wrong, Will thinks, should be revolting and not done, and yet he finds himself gingerly shifting back against Hannibal’s hands for another, squirming with a pleasant hum when he does it again.

Will can see his hands, how tightly they grip the sheets beneath him, in the morning light that slowly creeps to the sky, slowly fills the room with cool light and the promise of a clear day.

Another broad stroke of Hannibal’s tongue and Will laughs, shaking and delighted, breathing another gentle curse against the pillows before he bites down against them, arches his back harder, and, red-faced and grinning like a fool, presents himself for more.

With only one hand to keep him bared, Hannibal skims the other up over, to rub the small of his back, to push against it and bow the boy even more. He does not dip his tongue inside, would not demean the boy in such a way as that, but with a rumble wraps his lips in a sucking kiss against the sensitive skin. He holds it, savors it, until Will has gasped himself so breathless that Hannibal is concerned that perhaps he has fainted, before finally relenting to lap firmly with his tongue again.

“Five,” he finally murmurs, his own heart allowed to race as he fills his lungs with air. A grin, unseen, as Will swears again beneath him in relief and starts to turn, before Hannibal snares him around the thighs and buries his face again to hear the boy moan.

And he does, loudly and in a voice that is no longer his own, so much higher and tighter than he usually sounds, helpless to this pleasure that is being wrought on him. Will’s toes curl, he ducks his head, turns it, arches harder and tries to catch his breath, all the while his hips move back against the man’s mouth, shameless in his need for more, in his demand and enjoyment of it.

He wonders how Hannibal knows of this, what he has done, if he has felt this, if he will expect Will to do the same to him -

His hand squeezes harder between his legs, cock already leaking copiously from the over stimulation, the tautness of his muscles, the burning in his lungs. Will has never felt so alive, he wants this never to end.

“More… please…” he gasps, bending one way, then another, aching to spread his legs wider, to feel… “More… more… Hannibal! Hannibal - oh…”

A particular delight sings through Hannibal as he hears his name called and begged and sobbed so sweetly, and from this boy who he knows to be his - more so in this moment, in particular, he muses. He drives his tongue harder against Will’s opening - twitching sweetly, impossibly warm - as he seeks to make him cry out more, despite knowing the slaves will be waking soon, and surely will hear it.

There is a particular delight in that, as well, he supposes.

Hannibal surges forward, lips curling against his skin - sucking, licking, tasting, teasing - and as Will’s voice pitches higher, more unsteady, Hannibal reaches around his waist to shove the boy’s shaking hand aside and take his length into his own grip instead.

“For me,” he murmurs grinning against Will’s skin, his breath cool where his spit glistens. “Finish for me, peacemaker.”

Will feels as though his entire vision goes white, as though he has looked at the sun too long then looked away, as his lips part on another shuddering moan of pleasure and he feels himself cum, quick and hot, in the hand that strokes him over and over, curls over the head until Will is shaking and begging for him to stop because he’s so sensitive he can feel every brush of air against his skin.

“Please,” he begs, adjusting to spread his knees just a little, rocking his hips just enough to be enticing, tempting, entirely wanton.

“You, I want you. Hannibal, Gods…”

Will laughs, curses, laughs again and knows he is trembling entirely, head to toe, and that he wants nothing more than to bring Hannibal to his pleasure between his legs.

He does, again and again that day, when despite Hannibal’s insistence that lessons not be missed, he seems entirely content to let the day slip away without leaving the other’s side, with food and wine brought to them where they lay entwined.

Hannibal does, however, make Will recite for him, from astride his hips.

And the next day they are up, finally, with Hannibal sending a _say nothing_ look to his slave who regards him with obvious amusement beneath the rueful arch of her brow. Days pass, weeks, a peaceful rhythm between them of fond flirtations and lessons learned, hard days of dust and clattering weapons punctuated by whoops of victory and tears of frustration, and long nights of rumination over philosophy and language and discovering precisely the right way that the other likes to be touched.

There is no news from Athens. There is no news from Persia. And there are times in which it seems as though there are no others in the world but themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are very pleased to let everyone know that - like so many of our stories - what was supposed to be a one-shot has now begged to be written into so much more.
> 
>  _Ero̱totropía_ is the first of three books in the [Aiónios](http://archiveofourown.org/series/178289) series. There'll be one book for each year that Will spends in Hannibal's capable hands, ten chapters each.
> 
> Keep an eye for book two - _Engysis_ \- starting Friday! And thank you all, always, for your incredible support!

**Author's Note:**

> Ero̱totropía - courtship
> 
> \---
> 
> Ok so the ritual that Hannibal goes through with Will before he takes him away is apparently a genuine thing, check this out:
> 
> _"[...] a beautiful creature without pressing needs of his own. [The erômenos] is aware of his attractiveness, but self-absorbed in his relationship with those who desire him. He will smile sweetly at the admiring lover; he will show appreciation for the other's friendship, advice, and assistance. He will allow the lover to greet him by touching, affectionately, his genitals and his face, while he looks, himself, demurely at the ground. … The inner experience of an erômenos would be characterized, we may imagine, by a feeling of proud self-sufficiency. Though the object of importunate solicitation, he is himself not in need of anything beyond himself. He is unwilling to let himself be explored by the other's needy curiosity, and he has, himself, little curiosity about the other. He is something like a god, or the statue of a god."_
> 
> Also an interesting note: the erômenos was regarded as a future citizen, not an "inferior object of sexual gratification," and was portrayed with respect in art.


End file.
